Blue Marble. The View from 18268.313 miles

Imagine, and, we can only imagine, how many articles currently sit on the internet containing this article’s title. To my surprise, with the help of AI, I just learned that there are only 2 authentic Blue Moon photos; “NASA took a new “Blue Marble” photo of Earth in December 2022, the first since the original image was taken in December 1972 during the Apollo 17 mission. NASA has released several similar images of Earth since 1972, but they were stitched together from multiple photos taken at different times.”

Relying solely on the 2 photos, of Earth itself, nothing’s changed!

Sadly though, the atmosphere is choking on vaporous human waste.

And, the total population of Earth has grown; per AI, “The world’s population in 1972 was 3,844,800,885, while in 2022 it was 7,975,105,156. This is a more than three-fold increase from the mid-20th century, when the population was around 2.5 billion in 1950. The world’s population is expected to increase to 9.7 billion by 2050 and almost 10.4 billion by the mid-2080s.”.

This is not Earth shattering news. One of humanity’s strongest traits is our ability to multiply. (Insert your favorite arithmetic joke here).

Despite our inclination to poison our planet aided by our inclination to procreate, our view of the Blue Marble is unlikely to change. Those things which are changing do so at an imperceptible pace. It’s estimated that hummingbirds have been around for 30 million years.

Now that we have this 50 year old comparison we see that Earth, physically, has not changed.

When we look at human behavior through our chosen news outlet, not much has changed. Human’s still kill each other in the name of their version of god.

1972, 2022, 2072, 2122 ………… Geologically, in the last 50 years we see no difference …nor will we in the next 100.

Will we see any difference in how we treat each other in the next 50, 100, 1000 years? Mmmmmmm?

Blue Marble is a photograph of Earth taken by the crew of Apollo 17 on December 7, 1972, from a distance of about 29,400 kilometers from the planet’s surface. The image is named after the spherical agates that children used to play with, as the Earth appeared to the astronauts to be the size of a glass marble from their perspective. The Blue Marble is one of the most widely distributed and influential photographs in existence, especially in environmental protection advocacy.