EARTH

[Labors of Hercules]

Earth: Once the rarest gem in the known Universe, sustaining infinitely complex natural systems.

Earth: Once the home of Homo sapiens: arguably the most intelligent species to emerge from her myriad fauna over eons of evolution.

Earth: Once reshaped by Homo sapien society in a self-obsessed orgy of consumption, destruction and abuse.

Earth: (Past tense), A lifeless body orbiting the sun at a distance of 93 million miles...

If we kill the Earth, We die with her.

When addressing the issues of human society, from individuals to governments, the one most important question is so often the one that no-one asks:

Will EARTH be helped or harmed by our decision?

[bunnies]

1. k&r. Without Earth none of this other shit matters. nt

[roguevalley]

18. I love her. I wish her only well. By the by, I love your lorax. :) Talk

about an advocate for earth ...

[Quixote1818]

2. Well, humans may die off but earth will heal it's self and be just fine

after we are gone. It's been hit by meteorites and Super volcano's 1,000 times more destructive than what he are doing to her. However, it would be nice if my great grand children could enjoy the earth and not just the grand children of the cockroaches that live in my house.

[Arugula Latte]

3. Such truth to what you say.

The Earth is such a beautiful planet. It frightens me that after billions of years of life evolving upon Earth, these primates called modern humans have inflicted so much damage to the environment (really in just the last couple hundred years, since the Industrial Revolution kicked in).

[Labors of Hercules]

21. And the exponential growth of our population...

fostering the same growth in industry results in exponentially greater destruction. As long as our "quality of life" is determined by our percentage ownership of what is produced, the spiral will continue until nothing is left.

www.storyofstuff.com

[stellanoir]

4. lovely

blessings upon you this season and always for this

here's more. . .

http://www.sedonadigitalarts.com/html/video_previews.html

Happy Solstice.

[AtomicKitten]

5. K&R

[Uncle Joe]

6. Beautiful photo, Hercules and to think everything and everybody we've

ever known through out history has ridden on that blue marble.

Thanks for the thread.

[burythehatchet]

7. Gaia never dies. She simply expels contaigens

[tavalon]

16. The way I frame it is that we are behaving like a cancer to the earth

She knows how to get rid of cancer. Do we know how to stop being a cancer? If not, we are dead men walking.

[Desertrose]

8. This is the perspective we need to remember....

We all have to share this big blue ball.....


Solstice Blessings!!

DR

[calteacherguy]

9. "For Nothing"

"For Nothing"

Earth a flower
a phlox on the steep
slopes of light
hanging over the vast
solid spaces
small rotten crystals;
salts.

Earth a flower
by a gulf where a raven
flaps by once
a glimmer, a color
forgotten as all
falls away.

A flower
for nothing;
an offer;
no taker;

Snow-trickle, feldspar, dirt.

-Gary Snyder

[BootinUp]

10. [reading from the sacred scrolls of the apes]

Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death.

[CrispyQ]

11. Song in Space

When man first flew beyond the sky
He looked back into the world's blue eye

Man said: What makes your eye so blue?
Earth said: The tears in the ocean do.

Why are the seas so full of tears?
Because I've wept so many thousand years.

Why do you weep as you dance through space?
Because I am the mother of the Human Race.

~Adrian Mitchell

Gorgeous pic of our Mother.

[mtnsnake]

12. Beautiful

BTW, check out the picture within the picture. Starting just below the large pink area near the top of the world, I see an upside down salmon lying right smack on top of a chicken's beak, and that chicken is standing on the wingtips of a flying horse.

[yowzayowzayowza]

13. 7921.

Good number to have handy to contrast the trillions of tonnes of emissions we're responsible for. 7921 = maximum distance between you and every other living thing on this planet. Indeed, tharze no known life more than 7921 miles from you, ever.

[unkachuck]

14. K&R

....without treatment, almost everywhere on the planet humans can no longer drink surface water as God/Nature intended....the most vital substance for our lives and we've turned into toxic waste....

"Will EARTH be helped or harmed by our decision?"

....those of us on the bottom can only make but one decision....'continue on our present path or cease to be consumers'....our daily contributions to the corporate-beast, fuels the destruction of our planet....

[Labors of Hercules]

20. Even after eons of time, Earth will bear the scars...

of our corporate beast: a deeply chiseled graffiti saying "Man wuz here".

[tavalon]

15. Honestly, we aren't going to kill Gaia

Gaia lives on a timeline that we puny humans cannot even comprehend, it's so long. She will survive but unless we change our relationship with her, we will not. This needs to be reframed as a save the humans campaign. I'm not saying we aren't doing great damage to her, just that she will shake us off if she needs to and she will eventually be fine without us. We will not be fine unless we straighten up and fly right, right now. Heck, even with a lot of straight flying, it may be too late for us, at least for many, if not most of us.

[Occam Bandage]

17. You can't kill the Earth. You can temporarily render it unsuitable for humans.

But the old girl has been through a lot worse than we could ever put her through. There have been numerous extinction events as drastic as anything we could perform. Don't worry about killing the Earth--worry about killing humanity.

[Labors of Hercules]

19. Exactly. We are becoming an extinction event.

That is what we must contend with now.

[yewberry]

22. Mother Earth always bats last.

Always.

[Eurobabe]

23. I'll say it again...LOVE YOUR MOTHER!!!

:grouphug:

[Perry Logan]

24. Planet earth: love it or leave it.