By LEONARDO BOFF*
From Space to Eden: When the Vision of Earth as a 'Pale Blue Dot' Required the Rediscovery of Our Humanity
Human beings are curious and insatiable creatures. They are always inventing things and discovering new beings. Since leaving Africa, a few million years ago, they have been discovering new lands, plants, animals, rivers and lakes. They were particularly interested in metals, like the Europeans of the 16th century, hungry for gold and silver, and today, in our days, in search of rich lands containing lithium and other materials for high technology.
They discovered how matter is composed, they identified the basic elements of life, genes, they are trying to discover the most distant galaxy to understand how our universe began. There is nothing they do not want to discover and give it a name. And yet not everyone has discovered themselves.
One thing, however, they were slow to discover: the Earth itself. It was only on September 15, 1519 that Ferdinand Magellan discovered that the Earth was round, something that flat-earthers deny. But the Earth itself as a planet had not yet been discovered. It was necessary for astronauts to leave Earth and from there, from their spaceships or from the Moon, discover, in amazement, the Earth.
Perhaps the secret meaning of space travel had this profound meaning, as the astronaut J.P. Allen expressed it with fine intuition: “There has been much discussion of the pros and cons of going to the moon; I have not heard anyone argue that we should go to the moon in order to see the Earth from there. After all, that was surely the real reason we went to the moon.”
I bring here the testimony of other astronauts, contained in a very rich book by Frank White, The Overview Effect:space exploration and human evolution.
Sigmund Jähn, another astronaut, expressed his changed consciousness upon returning to Earth in this way: “Political boundaries have been overcome. National boundaries have also been overcome. We are one people and each of us is responsible for maintaining the fragile balance of the Earth. We are its guardians and we must care for our common future.”
Astronaut Gene Cernan’s testimony is impressive and full of reverence: “I was the last man to set foot on the Moon in December 972. From the lunar surface I looked with reverential awe at the Earth against a background of very dark blue. What I saw was too beautiful to be understood, too logical, too full of purpose to be the result of a mere cosmic accident. One felt, inwardly, compelled to praise God. God must exist for having created what I had the privilege of beholding.”
This perception of having contemplated the Earth from outside the Earth, “a pale blue dot” “hiding behind our thumb” circling around a suburban sun, of fifth magnitude, in the dark immensity of the universe, aroused in the astronauts a feeling of sacredness and responsibility: the Earth is small and fragile, blessed with an exuberant nature and with an immensity of life forms, overpopulated by intelligent beings, humans, who unfortunately, live in dispute with each other and cannot agree on the same terms as the three trillion cells in their bodies.
They are constantly fighting over space and pieces of the Earth, knowing that it belongs to everyone and that from up there, the boundaries of nations, arbitrarily drawn by human beings, are not noticeable. Earth and Humanity form a single entity with the same destiny. We are Earth that feels, thinks and loves.
Today we are discovering that we are the main ones responsible for the devastation that is occurring in the main biomes. We have even invented a name for this aggressiveness, the Anthropocene era, which is slowly changing into the Necrocene era (killing of species) and, finally, the Pyrocene era (massive forest fires). We find it hard to accept our collective responsibility because there are many, especially CEOs of large companies and even the crazy president of the greatest devastating power on Earth, who declare himself an avowed denier.
After we have discovered the Earth, we have to discover our responsibility and the ethical imperative that has been imposed on us, clearly expressed in the Scriptures: that of being the “caretakers and keepers of the garden of Eden” (Gn 2,15:XNUMX). But as the great biologist E. Wilson recognized, we have made ourselves the “Satan of the Earth” and transformed the Garden of Eden “into a slaughterhouse.”
How far can our madness go? To self-destruction, since we have created all the means to do so? Or will the principle of hope, which inspires new utopias and changes of direction, save us? These have occurred throughout history. Who knows, we may discover our place among all beings, as regenerators and saviors of the Common Home, which would guarantee us yet another type of future, different from this dark and overheated one.
We believe in Saint Paul: “hope will never disappoint us” (Romans 5,5:XNUMX). What remains for us is to hope as Paulo Freire, to use all means to make the possible impossible, and the probable, improbable. Then we would still have a future. And there will be.
*Leonardo Boff is an ecologist, philosopher and writer. Author of, among other books, Caring for our common home: clues to delay the end of the world. (Vozes). [https://amzn.to/3zR83dw ]
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