Blog         

HOW SMALL IT IS!

This is the photo of Earth taken in 1990 by the Voyager probe from 6 billion kilometers away.
In the shot, our planet appears as a pale blue dot suspended in the vast blackness of space.
It's the farthest photo from our Earth that has ever been taken. The idea came from American astronomer Carl Sagan. He later published the book “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space,” in which he included a profound reflection on that photograph.
Here are his words that represent an invitation to reflect on our condition, on how ephemeral and yet unique the opportunity of life is, and especially on the importance of devoting maximum energy to the climate issue, which must be placed at the top of the daily priorities list for all of us.




Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994:
"Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate.
Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known...".

HUMAN STUPIDITY

Man has been given two enormous gifts: intelligence and conscience. An animal follows instincts, it does not have the ability to choose between good and evil. Man, the only species on Earth that has been given these special gifts and this great responsibility, how does he use them? Sometimes well, but often badly, very badly indeed. With the knowledge, technology, and wealth that we have achieved, life could be good all over the world if there were true collaboration and resources were used intelligently. Instead, selfishness and the thirst for power prevail, actions are taken only in terms of money, profit, and the accumulation of capital without taking into consideration much more important factors like health, the well-being of people, and respect for the environment.

Our behavior is all the more foolish when considering not only the rarity of life in the universe but also the improbability of its formation. We fail to realize just how incredible it is that the universe was formed, life was born, and intelligence developed. A highly precise series of conditions have allowed us to be here at this moment, intelligent creatures on a beautiful planet that we are mistreating to the point of making our extinction very likely. It would be an enormous waste to throw away this great opportunity that has been given to us, especially considering that if we manage not to destroy ourselves we could evolve further.