Aside from being a comedian and legend, Chevy Chase is a longtime activist for the environment. (It helps that he’s married to Jayni Chase, the founder of the Center for Environmental Education.) Together, Chevy and Jayni wrote this editorial for World Oceans Day, based around their experiences on Mission Blue Voyage, the boat trip inspired by Sylvia Earle’s 2009 TED Prize wish. From the CNN.com editorial:

In April, we went on a trip to the Galápagos with 100 ocean scientists, activists and artists, filmmakers and musicians, to talk about what’s going on in the ocean and what we can do to help. On the Mission Blue Voyage, we heard things and saw things that shocked us — like Brian Skerry’s picture of shrimp bycatch, the 8 pounds of dead sea creatures that are thrown away as garbage in order to catch 10 ounces of shrimp … We also saw amazing things, thing that blew our minds — like watching a bioluminescent jellyfish light up its mating display in the pitch-black deep ocean. We talked with some of the smartest people we’ve ever met, and we came up with some big plans for saving the ocean.

We’re not scientists, but we know something we can do: encourage you to talk and think about the ocean, with hope that you will be more involved in the things that will make a difference …

Read Chevy and Jayni Chase’s editorial on CNN.com >>

Photo: TED / James Duncan Davidson. See hundreds more glorious photos from Mission Blue Voyage on Flickr >>