Blue, With or Without Us

“Sun-bleached bones were most wonderful against the blue—that blue that will always be there as it is now after all man’s destruction is finished.”

Georgia O’Keeffe

The comprehensive assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published earlier this month, is, to say the least, ominous, concluding that human activity was “unequivocally” the cause of the catastrophic crisis we now face.

Though we often speak of “saving the earth,” Adam Frank, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester, points out that “our planet does not need our saving. The biosphere has endured cataclysms far worse than us — and after millions of years thrived again.”

Yes, even if Earth is no longer habitable for us humans, our highly adaptable planet will live on, as it has for more than four billion years.

Dr. Frank warns “that if we don’t take the right kind of action soon the biosphere will simply move on without us, creating new versions of itself in the changing climate we’re generating now. So we must be honest. The problem is not saving the Earth or life … but saving our cherished civilization.” 

Read Dr. Frank’s Opinion Article in The New York Times: Earth Will Survive. We May Not.