Sky Locked Land - Earth Day 2010

So here we are: April 22, 2010, another Earth Day.The 40th such day in fact.  Earth Day is the only institutionally recognized day I actively celebrate. Our species emerged from the thin organic layering of flora and fauna covering this big bad space rock. Scientists call this intricate web of life enveloping the Earth a biosphere. We simply call it home. To be honest, it feels great each year to join millions of people around the world in celebration of this wondrous and lonely planet.

 

Below is the first picture ever taken of earth from outside its atmosphere(refered to as "earthrise"). It was taken during the Apollo 8 mission to the moon in 1968. It changed the way so many people view themselves and the environment. Within months of this photo being released to the public the modern environmental movement was born.

Here are some interesting facts you may or may not know about our home:

• First, the name "Earth" derives from the Anglo-Saxon word erda, which means ground or soil. It became eorthe later, and then erthe in Middle English - yet humans did not perceive the Earth as a planet until the 16th century. 
• Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System.
• Earth is also the largest, most massive, and densest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets.
• Earth formed roughly 4.54 billion years ago, with Life first appeared on its surface within just a billion years.
• Earth's outer surface is divided into several rigid segments, or tectonic plates, that gradually migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years.
• About 71% of the surface is covered with salt-water oceans, the remainder consisting of continents, islands and small pools of fresh water we call lakes.
• The planet has a circumference of 40,041.47 km (mean), but a surface area of 510,072,000 km2!
• The Earth's interior is constantly active, with a thick layer of relatively solid mantle, a liquid outer core that generates a magnetic field, and a solid iron inner core.
• At present, Earth orbits the Sun once for every roughly 366.26 times it rotates about its axis. This is a sidereal year, which is equal to 365.26 solar days.

This planet is expected to continue supporting life for another 1.5 billion years, after which the rising luminosity and expansion of the Sun will gradually eliminate the plant's biosphere. Rising luminosity? Yes.

 

On April 22 I usually set aside my online explorations to spend the day outside – engaged in activities i believe actually contribute to cultivating a more humane and creative world. But this year, in addition to my offline strategies, I wanted to spend some time with you, the readers, and bang the virtual drum for Mother Earth so that we can celebrate together, in some small way.

To this end, beginning today, and lasting until the end of April, I will be blogging furiously on topics decidedly terrestrial - with the intent of not only bringing into to focus relevant issues, but also to point out some possible directions we might engage when finding practical solutions to existing eco-calamities.

 

Surely there will be some disagreement on what is truly relevant to our understanding of life on this planet, but all such dysjunctures are simply points of rhetoric, important only ever by standing outside the shadow cast but an overwhelming need for practical responsiveness and responsibility.

 

We only have one planet. And we need to do what is right, not what is comfortable.

 

And to kick things off, I wanted to point out that The World People's Conference on Climate Change started on April 19 in Cochabamba, Bolivia. People from all over the planet have come together in support of transitioning from a consumption driven, glutinous, corporatist society to a more healthy and sustainable global community. From Wikipedia:

The World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, better known by its Spanish acroynm CMPCC, is a conference organized by the Bolivian government to be held in Cochabamba, Bolivia April 19-22, 2010. The event will also be webcast online by OneClimate and the Global Campaign for Climate Action (GCCA) in Copenhagen during the United Nations Conference of Parties (COP 15) climate meetings in December 2009.
One of the Cochabamba conference's stated objectives is to provide an alternative platform for civil society and governments to discuss climate change issues, and specifically to produce proposals for new commitments to the Kyoto Protocol and projects in the lead-up to the next UN climate negotiations scheduled during the COP 16 meeting in Mexico in December 2010.
Other objectives of the conference in Cochabamba include the drafting of a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth, the organization of a People's World Referendum on Climate Change, and planning the establishment of a Climate Justice Tribunal.

Check out the proceedings via webcast: here

 

With the utter failure of the Copenhagen Summit debacle behind us, people everywhere are starting to create local environmental initiatives, and are taking action through community politics and municipal governments. What the boys in suits in the capital won't do, we'll do for ourselves.

 

So, today, please take some time to be grateful for the natural wonders of this planet. Talk to someone about what you are doing to contribute to a more ecological and sustainable society; ask them what they are doing to help; have a conversation about global warming; suggest a book or film about environmental issues; and above else, smile - you are alive.

 

see also: Earth Day 2009