Everybody needs...water. But there's optimism.

And there's plenty of bad news about the environment. In our homes we have plastics reducing human fertility. In the air we worry about CO2 and methane and global warming. In polar regions the ice sheets are melting. In the oceans we hear of large "islands" of plastic refuse. Global warming is rasing the acidity of oceans, destroying coral reefs. And a prominent oceanographer tells us we've now eaten 90% of the large fish in the ocean. We may enjoy red sails and red snapper, but we've reached red alert on the ocean's future.

At the recent TED conference, oceanographer Sylvia Earle was given an award, and in turn she shared her view of ocean's future. Surprisingly upbeat and inspiring. "With knowing comes caring." Here's the video.

Most of you will be familiar with TED. But here's their homepage. Ideas worth spreading. Like Google and Sylvia putting the world's oceans into Google Earth.