“Our world bank is blue”
Continuing in this series on Who Heals the Earth, I want to do more than ‘think blue’. I’m going to confess my weakness: failing to do all I can to preserve the lifeblood of our life support system.
How many times have I mindlessly walked by a piece of trash dropped on the street near the drain? Or, other times, thought to excuse myself since I had no disposable glove or bag to pick it up with?
Another unconscionable ‘for instance’: though I’ve been aware of the need to ‘think blue’ and even made personal changes in how I use water, at the same time I somehow made it ‘okay’ (in my reasoning mind) about eating sushi. Until today.
Today I’m paying more attention to what oceanographer Sylvia Earle has been teaching for a long time. Her citing of statistics is more than just shocking, maybe not quite in the way that Earthlings is; but her voice, like Earthlings’ filmmaker Shaun Monson‘s, has taken my awareness to a finer level.
Earle says that what was once a sea of Eden is now ‘paradise lost’, in that we’ve taken, eaten (and sadly wasted and misused) 90% of the big fish of the ocean. As a species, humanity has exploited the ocean in overt as well as insidious ways. Way that we can no longer afford to dismiss.
We still have the power to change direction and salvage what’s left
In this TED video, Sylvia Earle warns about the consequences of not knowing the cost of what we take from the sea. She correlates what we have done to protect 12% of the land on the earth with the need for more national marine sanctuaries to protect our life support system.
Earle also talks about how the advanced technology of Google Earth can reveal deforestation as it happens helping to bring more awareness and change. (Google Earth recently launched its forest monitoring tool and announced it on December 10, 2009, at the International Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen.)
“No blue, no green; no water, no life.”
- Image via Wikipedia
Earles’s message is also one of hope and inspiration. She believes that,
“The next ten years may be the most important in the next ten thousand years, the best chance our species will have to protect what remains of the natural systems that give us life.
“To cope with climate change, we need new ways to generate power. “We need new ways – better ways – to cope with poverty, wars and disease.
“We need many things to keep and maintain the world as a better place.
“But nothing else will matter if we fail to protect the ocean. Our fate and the ocean are one. …”
Love the blue heart of the planet
Sylvia’s wish? She says,
“I wish you would use all means at your disposal – films! expeditions! the web! more! – to ignite public support for a global network of marine protected areas, hope spots large enough to save and restore the ocean, the blue heart of the planet.”
Our world bank is blue
For more view the 18 minute TED video, “How to protect the oceans”:
My other related articles:
- Who Heals the Earth?
- Ecosystem of spiritual possibilities
- Solving world pollution problems
- Meditation Montage articles on eco-friendly living
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