Who is Jacques Cousteau

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Ranked #92 in People, #2,979 overall

Jacques-Yves Cousteau: Ocean Explorer, Conservationist and Father of Modern Scuba

He may have been the most famous undersea explorer of our time. At the time of his death, CNN remembered Jacques Cousteau by saying, "For millions of people who see the ocean only through the porthole of television, the voice of the sea had a soft French accent." Indeed, Cousteau brought the undersea world to millions through books and films, and also helped thousands to enjoy the undersea world themselves as the co-inventor of the Aqua-Lung, which was the precursor to modern scuba diving equipment.

Jacques Cousteau Biography 

During his lifetime, Captain Cousteau created more than 120 television documentaries and 50 books, won four Oscars and 10 Emmys, founded an environmental protection foundation, invented the Aqua-lung, correctly predicted the echolocation abilities of dolphins and porpoises before they were discovered, served as a consultant to the United Nations, and attained many other accomplishments too numerous to list. When he died in 1997, the chairman of the National Geographic Society, said: ''The ocean environment has lost its greatest champion." Read more from Wikipedia below.

Jacques-Yves Cousteau (; 11 June 1910 ? 25 June 1997)Cousteau Society was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water. He co-developed the aqua-lung, pioneered marine conservation and was a member of the Académie française.

He was commonly known as "le Commandant Cousteau" or "Captain Cousteau".

Jacques Cousteau Biography for Kids 

Sterling Biographies: Jacques Cousteau: A Life Under the Sea

Amazon Price: $5.95 (as of 12/20/2009)Buy Now

Kids will savor this fascinating trip into the life and undersea world of pioneering oceanographer Jacques Cousteau. In his quest to show off the beauty found below the waves, Cousteau dedicated himself to developing new diving technology, inventing innovative ways to photograph underwater life, and traveling the globe to explore different bodies of water. His films, including The Academy Award(R)-winning The Silent World, opened people's eyes to a formerly unknown and spectacular marine universe. Cousteau did more than anyone to enlighten us to the stunning complexity of the oceans' ecology, and the importance of preserving it.

"People protect what they love."
- Jacques Cousteau

Jacques Cousteau Quotes 

- The sea, the great unifier, is man's only hope. Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: we are all in the same boat.

- No aquarium, no tank in a marine land, however spacious it may be, can begin to duplicate the conditions of the sea. And no dolphin who inhabits one of those aquariums or one of those marine lands can be considered normal.

- Mankind has probably done more damage to the Earth in the 20th century than in all of previous human history.

- The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.

- A lot of people attack the sea. I make love to it.

The Cousteau Society 

Nonprofit organization founded by Captain Cousteau

The Cousteau Society is a nonprofit organization started by Captain Cousteau in 1974 and dedicated to the "protection and improvement of the quality of life for present and future generations."

"The Society believes that only an informed and educated public can make the decisions necessary to protect and manage the world's natural resources," according to ther Society website. "Education efforts directed toward members, classrooms and the general population include membership publications Calypso Log and Cousteau Kids, individual information packets on a variety of environmental subjects, statements on developing issues, participation in special events and the innovative Cousteau in the Classroom program, to date reaching over 111,000 students in more than 2,200 classrooms. The Cousteau Society is also working to expand its presence on the Internet to make its 30 years of informative material more readily available to a global audience."

Help Save the Oceans - For Free! 

A simple click of your mouse can help save the oceans Cousteau cherished

If you're an ocean lover, Care2.com's Race for the Oceans is a site you'll want to visit and bookmark. It's a quick, easy way to help save our oceans.

Simply visit the site and click the "Click to Help" button. When you do, a donation will be generated for Oceana's ocean protection programs. Contributions are funded by advertisers who have agreed to pay for clicks in exchange for being featuring on the Race for the Oceans. 100% of the net revenues are donated to Oceana, a nonprofit organization working to save the world's oceans.

In His Own Words 

Cousteau on Conservation

The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus: Exploring and Conserving Our Natural World

Amazon Price: $10.88 (as of 12/20/2009)Buy Now

From Amazon: Believing that "people will protect what they love," pioneering marine explorer and filmmaker Jacques Cousteau (1910-97) set out to make humankind fall in love with the sea, the crucible of life. A man of sangfroid, conviction, courage, ingenuity, and perception, Cousteau not only was the preeminent guide to the surpassing beauty and mystery of the deep but also became a tireless defender of the watery realm. With the help of Schiefelbein, who wrote the narration for a number of his award-winning documentaries, Cousteau completed this defining and superlative chronicle the year before his death, and although it has taken a decade for it to reach America, it is fresh and stinging, replete with an anchoring foreword by Bill McKibben and Schiefelbein's vivid introduction and informative epilogue. Cousteau seamlessly splices amazing tales of exploring undersea caves, encountering sharks, and surviving an Antarctic blizzard with bracing eyewitness accounts of the shockingly rapid and potentially catastrophic destruction of marine life.

Jean-Michael Cousteau's Ocean Futures Society 

Captain Cousteau's son Jean-Michael served as Executive Vice President of the Cousteau Society, the nonprofit organization his father started, for nearly 20 years. He left the organization and founded the Ocean Futures Society in 1999. The society describes itself as a"non-profit marine conservation and education organization (that) serves as a voice for the ocean by communicating in all media the critical bond between people and the sea and the importance of wise environmental policy... As Ocean Futures' leader, Jean-Michel serves as an impassioned diplomat for the environment, reaching out to the public through a variety of media."

Jacques Cousteau DVDs 

Go under the sea with Captain Cousteau

Jacques Cousteau was known for his amazing undersea videos and photography. These DVDs will take you below the oceans with the famed explorer.
There was an error connecting to the Amazon web service. Please try again. Sorry, there are no results available from Amazon.

Inventor of the Aqua-lung 

Jacques Cousteu's invention led to modern scuba equipment

:For the firm named Aqualung, see Aqua Lung America. For other uses, see Aqualung (disambiguation).

Aqualung was the original name for the first open-circuit free-swimming underwater breathing sets; the type most familiar at the time was the twin-hose open-circuit scuba, as developed by Emile Gagnan and Jacques-Yves Cousteau in 1943"Year by Year 1943" -- History Channel International, and since then made by various manufacturers with varying design details and number of cylinders. It consists of a high pressure diving cylinder and a diving regulator that supplies the diver with breathing gas at ambient pressure, via a demand valve. Before that, there were a few attempts at constant-flow compressed-air breathing sets.

About Scuba Diving 

Jacques Cousteau helped millions of people see the beauty of the undersea world through photos, videos and TV specials. But if you'd like to learn more about life under the ocean, you'll need to don a wetsuit, get some scuba gear and go diving. If you're thinking about taking the plunge for the first time, here's some information on scuba diving from Wikipedia.

Category: File - :Buzo.jpg|right|thumb|300px|Scuba diver with air tank clearly visible

Scuba diving ("scuba" originally being an acronym for Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus, although now widely considered a word in its own right) is a form of underwater diving in which a diver uses a scuba set to breathe underwater for recreation, commercial or industrial reasons.

Unlike early diving, which relied exclusively on air pumped from the surface, scuba divers carry their own source of breathing gas (usually compressed air), allowing them greater freedom than with an air line. Both surface supplied and scuba diving allow divers to stay underwater significantly longer than with breath-holding techniques as used in snorkelling and free-diving.

According to the purpose of the dive, a diver usually moves underwater by swimfins attached to his feet, but external propulsion can come from an underwater vehicle, or a sled pulled from the surface.

Coral Reef 

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Jacques Cousteau Videos 

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Jacques Cousteau--What's My Li...

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Jacques Cousteau

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Jacques Cousteau Intro

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The Inspirational Jacques Cous...

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Cousteau and the Rights of Fut...

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Calypso John Denver Jacques Co...

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More Sites About Jacques Cousteau 

Learn more about the Frenchman with these links

Cousteau Society
Official Cousteau Society website with information on environmental protection, life and inventions of Jacques Yves Cousteau (scuba, diving saucer), and details on Calypso and Alcyone.
CNN - Jacques Cousteau remembered for his 'common touch' - June 25, 1997
Jacques Cousteau remembered for his "common touch."
SPECTRUM Biographies - Jacques Cousteau
Short biography of the French oceanographer and founder of the Cousteau Society.
New York Times - Jacques Cousteau, Oceans' Impresario, Dies
New York Times obituary recalls the achievements of Captain Cousteua's life.

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