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“The Overview Effect” - Changing Perspectives And The Way We Think About Survival at a Planetary Scale

A fascinating read. It started with the first images of the Earth from space, "floating and alone"-, then followed the picture snapped  by  Apollo 17 as a full-color high-resolution photo of the Earth, now known as The Blue Marble- these images have created a shock, a sense of wonder and a different understanding of who we are in space and time. This wondrous feeling was  later coined as "the Overview Effect".

Building on this concept a new generation of thinkers and academics at Princeton University in NJ have been teaching about Planetary Identity (thinking beyond borders) and more recently an entire new field was developed called "Destiny Studies" with the aim “ to foster science and technology, to intensify planetary consciousness, to strengthen those international institutions that reinforce the reality that all countries are in one boat, to resist over managing the planet, and to learn to think coherently about future time.” 

This spurred similar endeavors in other parts of the world, with more teachers, institutions developing strategies and ways of thinking to tackle existential threats of the planet.

Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins described the experience of seeing the Earth from space as “invaluable to getting people together to work out joint solutions, by causing them to realize that the planet we share unites us in a way far more basic and far more important than differences in skin color or religion.” ... "Some common aspects of [the Overview Effect] are a feeling of awe for the planet,” ... “A profound understanding of the interconnection of all life, and a renewed sense of responsibility for taking care of the environment.” 

Tags

earth, planetaryidentity, princeton, bbeb, overvieweffect, sustainablefuture, english, highlight

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