A VIEW OF THE WORLD

A VIEW OF THE WORLD

By Ashok Mishra

When I launched into space for the first time, I expected to see a beautiful, fringed blue gem on the black velvet background of space. That image of earth—the extraordinary, powerful image of a little blue marble wrapped in white swirls of cloud cove—became the icon of the environmental movement in the 1970s. It was my mental picture of our planet as a passive force for living things that needed protection from human-induced damage and degradation. And it was not at all what I saw. In fact, I was completely unprepared for my first glimpse of the beautiful and dynamic planet that we call home.

Almost painfully bright, the earth I saw showed little evidence of human activity when compared with abundant evidence of its own natural process. During the shuttles daylight passes over the oceans, we could see the churning motion of the oceans, visible in the sun reflection on the water, evidence of the immense energy in the turbulent water that covers 70% of the Earth surface. We could clearly distinguish The Himalaya, the highest mountain range on earth, proves the ongoing collisions between the Indian subcontinent and the Asian continents. From orbit, its peaks resemble crinkled, warping paper. Volcanoes appear as the tinniest pimples on the face of the earth.

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Imagine how much energy is involved in all the winkering, folding, lifting, and melting in the continuous creation of the earth’s new crust! I didn’t see a delicate planet, but rather a no nonsense, strong Earth.

The night side of the earth gave me a different perspective. On night pass-in orbit, evidence of human activity is abundantly clear. Densely populated landmass or built-up buildings, whereas sparsely in Habitat deserts, there is almost complete darkness. Light outline content, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, where people live along the coastline, is illuminated by a string of lights, and in some places, highways are densely populated, and cities have grown up with almost all these transportation arteries.

This made it unmistakably clear how much the geology and environment impact where individuals have decided to reside. And it strikes me that these remarkable, comprehensive books contain within them these same, divergent views of the planet: The powerful Earth is largely affected by its human habitats and the fascinating world that is growing with human activities. I imagine looking through a zoom lens, starting with a wide field of view of Earth and the universe, and then zooming in to a microscope view of Earth’s inhabitants and how they have modified their surroundings to suit there needs.

This article presents the broadest possible view of the earth as just one planet in the universe, reinforcing the apartness and significance of our species. Spread by spread, detail by detail in progress from the view through chapter on the focus and variety of natures on earth, and then to chapter on the remarkable view story of our human family, culture, and history painting search a compressive pictures, this National Geography answer book reminds us of our sustainable thirst for knowledge that uniquely human quest that has brought as through thousands of years to the amazing movement in time and technology when we can fly out of the atmosphere, view Earth from above, and marvel at this beautiful planet.

Since there earliest presence on earth, humans have sought to make sense of their surroundings. Endurance relied upon understanding the way of behaving in a well of lava, the flood patterns of a waterway, or the ideal chance to cross a mountain pass, and people created approaches to record and pass on such information. As they ventured from their places of origin, by land and by sea, they acquired a broader perspective of the earth’s processes and of the patterns and impacts of human settlement throughout the world.

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