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| The Blue Marble by Apollo 17 |
The problem we were facing was universal. So, it demanded a universal response.
The world is no stranger to discord and denial, and the
ending of the Trump presidency was no exception. During the Pandemic, many people were swayed
by misinformation and efforts to confuse, distract, and discredit science and
truth. When the leader of a country says
something, no matter how ridiculous and untrue, there will always be people who
listen and believe it, simply because of the position he occupies.
This cloud of misinformation had
long ago settled over climate change, but the people were slowly waking up from
the denial, because the evidence of global warming, was increasingly leaping
off the page, and into the neighborhoods of California, of Florida, and the Gulf
Coast. The fires, the floods, hurricanes
kept increasing in frequency and intensity, and people began to wake up and
realize that something major is wrong, and we have to do something major about
it. The deniers tried to put up the usual
roadblocks to truth; lies, distortions, and misinformation, but the majority of
people had had enough. The election of
Biden had proven that. It was a close
race, but in the end reason and science won. And with
the swearing in of Biden, the campaigning could end, and the real work could
begin. We rejoined the Paris Climate Accord
and began the process of repairing our reputation as a nation.
There was still a fight ahead for those
who believed in change, but as time went on the balance shifted as more and
more physical evidence began to show up in front of the eyes of deniers. More lawmakers were pressured by their constituents
to respond to the threat. The private
sector, once they saw the profits to be made, began pushing green tech, electric
charging networks, and the revitalization of train travel as a viable
option. Governments, seeing the writing
on the wall, began offering incentives and tax breaks to draw the private
sector innovation and jobs to their districts. The
dispersal of technologies like Zoom and the rebirth of the national passenger
rail industry led to a drastic decline in air travel.
The tide was turning, but the response
was not limited to America. Other
countries who had a head start continued to lead in innovative solutions and
responses. The European Union banned all
gas engines in 2035. Spurred by dangerously
polluted air quality, India and China followed suit a few years later. The Oil producing nations of the world saw
the writing on the wall and used their profits to switch their economies to the
service industry, as well green energy generation. The deserts and oil fields of the middle east became
a carpet of solar panels.
With the dwindling dependence on
fossil fuels, the petroleum industry was forced to switch gears and transition
to green energy, oil drillers began digging geothermal projects, gas pumps across
the nation were retrofitted to be electric charging stations, and land once slated
to be drilled, now contained solar
panels and wind turbines. These giants who once profited from the oil and gas had
been forced to embrace that which they fought against, not out of guilt, but
out of the obsolescence of their product.
Semester total: 67
ReplyDelete"The tide was turning"--it does seem to be, doesn't it? If only our tide didn't turn so abruptly every other election cycle, or so...
ReplyDeleteDid you know that yesterday was the anniverary of that Blue Marble photo?
The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, December 7, 2020The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, December 7, 2020
The Want of Peace
by Wendell Berry
All goes back to the earth,
and so I do not desire
pride of excess or power,
but the contentments made
by men who have had little:
the fisherman’s silence
receiving the river’s grace,
the gardner’s musing on rows.
I lack the peace of simple things.
I am never wholly in place.
I find no peace or grace.
We sell the world to buy fire,
our way lighted by burning men,
and that has bent my mind
and made me think of darkness
and wish for the dumb life of roots.
“The Want of Peace” by Wendell Berry from New Collected Poems. © Counterpoint Press, 2012. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)
It was on this day in 1972 that astronauts on the Apollo 17 spacecraft took a famous photograph of Earth, a photo that came to be known as “The Blue Marble.” Photographs of Earth from space were relatively new.
In 1948, the astronomer Fred Hoyle said, “Once a photograph of the Earth, taken from the outside, is available — once the sheer isolation of the Earth becomes plain — a new idea as powerful as any in history will be let loose.”
The photograph captured on this day 48 years ago was the first clear image of the Earth, because the sun was at the astronauts’ back, and so the planet appears lit up and you can distinctly see blue, white, brown, even green. It became a symbol of the environmental movement of the 1970s, and it’s the image that gets put on flags, T-shirts, bumper stickers, and posters.
The crew of Apollo 17 was about 28,000 miles away from Earth when they took the Blue Marble photo. It was the last time that astronauts, not robots, were on a lunar mission — since then, no people have gotten far enough away from Earth to take a photo like it. https://www.garrisonkeillor.com/radio/twa-the-writers-almanac-for-december-7-2020/
Didn't mean to include that Berry poem, but it's a nice thought--"the peace of simple things" etc.--so I'll leave it in. Lagniappe.
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