Today is Earth Day. I didn't realise till this morning. Wondered if we could do a couple of things today and the rest of the week:
1. Any thoughts, added to Christines yesterday which I've pasted below.
2. Any poetry, quotes, one liners about creation, sustainability, balance and justice.
3. Photos that speak to you. If you email them to me I'll post them here in an album.
4. Anything else.
Let's have our own impromptu, inspired, pro-active Earth Day.
Christine's comments (slightly edited to stand on it's own rather than a response to a comment).
Stopping climate change is now impossible. But we can perhaps mitigate it e.g. keep average temperature changes to perhaps only 2 degrees centigrade.
But I strongly disagree with [the idea of the] poor old earth being in for a hard time. The Earth has been around 4.5 billion years, seen radical changes in atmospheric composition (going from no oxygen at all to the current 20% or so) and survived cataclysmic events such as the asteriod impact that created the moon.
Even if we think about an ecosystem rather than a geological body, good old Gaia can look after herself. Life is pretty resilient. Even if were to change the climate sufficiently to wipe out habitats and cause mass extinctions on a global scale, some other species would adapt and prosper.
Let's be absolutely clear here: the Earth is not in danger, the planet does not need to be 'saved' (however popular such phrases are in the Media). We (mankind) are the ones in danger. Our entire evolution and, especially, the development of our civilisation, has occurred during a fairlty stable period in Earth's climate (notwithstanding the odd ice age here and there!).
What we really have to be concerned about it is how well we can adapt to the changing situation e.g. How large a human population will be sustainable in the future (estimates suggest it could be less than half of those currently alive)? And what style and quality of life will they have?
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