In 1968 the Apollo 8 astronauts were the first humans to get far enough away to get a good snapshot of Mother Earth. The images from the Apollo missions caused a profound change in peoples concept of our planet — a tiny, but spectacularly beautiful ball floating in the vastness of space. It became viscerally evident to everyone who saw those pictures that the earth was small, and that we had no place else to go.
US senator Gaylord Nelson and activist Denis Hayes organized the first Earth Day two years after the Apollo 8 mission. More than 20 million people poured out on the streets, and the first Earth Day remains the largest single-day protest in human history.
In our fractured societies, it’s worth pondering the question of whether or not humanity has progressed very much. A not inconsiderable number of folk still believe the earth is flat, that the Apollo missions were “fake news.” We can see evidence every day with our own eyes that we are changing the planet by our actions, and yet we demand the right to continue until it is “more convenient” to alter them.
The question is not “can we” but “will we” do better?
Doug Hylan, Brooklin, Maine
A compelling shot, Doug, an image that served as a banner of environmentalism for an entire generation. It inspired Stewart Brand to launch the Whole Earth Catalog and raised widespread awareness of the need for serious stewardship of our precious "Spaceship Earth," as Bucky Fuller dubbed the sacred clod. But we weren't vigilant enough politically and the neoliberal, Techno-capitalists took control and here we are, facing Armageddon. Life is tragic and "all conditioned things are impermanent," as the Buddhists describe reality, "it is their nature to arise and pass away." Apparently that includes the Earth itself and the Sun as well, which is predicted to burn out in a billion years. Yet, despite all the signs of impending doom there's reasons to be optimistic. We know we "can" do better and I believe the mounting evidence of our heretofore insane arrangements with reality will eventually forge a collective realization in our wacky species that we shouldn't have taken more than we gave and we "will" do better or perish. Anyway, thanks for posting that picture; it inspired me to get my stash of Whole Earth Catalogs and CoEvolutionary Quarterlies out of the closet and redig myself . Onward!