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Sunday, July 08, 2012

Let's Stop Talking About Saving The Planet

If we want to save the planet we need to stop calling it that. We live in a thin strip of breathable air less than three miles in thickness. Our deepest ocean is only seven miles deep and our deepest freshwater only a mile. The width of our living space on this planet is about as thick as 10 minutes of highway.

We see what we hear.

When we hear "planet" or "Earth" we picture our large, friendly and rugged rock orbiting the sun.

How could we possibly hurt something so big?

When we hear the word environment or biosphere, we hear technical terms that some of us understand and many of us don't. People can understand the idea of "the life space." People can see that the thin strips of air and water painted onto this rock might be affected by what we dump into them, if we stop calling those places "the planet." The planet is going to continue orbiting the sun just fine.

It's the life space we need to worry about.

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2 comments:

  1. respectisthehub10:02 PM

    http://www.sfu.ca/sfunews/stories/2012/study-predicts-imminent-irreversible-planetary-collapse.html

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  2. respectisthehub10:24 AM

    This post was changed on 7-14-12 and 7-15-12. On 7-14-12 the phrase "our living space" was changed to "our life space" and on 7-15-12 that was changed to "the life space." In 2007, I suggested the halo. The optics are less important than the specific name.

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