Our Only Home

Nowhere else in our solar system is there a planet that is habitable. Venus and Mars are the two planets closest to our Earth. Venus, closer to the Sun and about the same size as Earth, has an atmosphere where the temperature reaches about 870 Degrees F (about 470 Degrees Celsius), because of a runaway Greenhouse Effect. It has clouds of sulfuric acid, and an atmosphere of mainly carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Mars, which is smaller and whose distance from the Sun is more than Earth's, has little or no atmosphere, because, with its smaller size its gravity is not strong enough to hold on to an atmosphere. Also, being colder, it only has some frozen water ice which is covered by frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice) at its poles. Other solar systems, even within our own Milky Way Galaxy, are millions of light years away. So, for all effective purposes, our planet Earth is the only one that can sustain our human life and life as we know it. It is our only home. Our planet Earth is BEAUTIFUL. It is a paradise. Its beauty manifests itself day and night to us - the brown, gray and green earth, the green trees, the blue sky, the waters, the exotic animals and other species, and the gorgeous flowers, all gives us a paradise that is inspiring, if we let it be. This beauty also sustains us. The air provides us oxygen that we need to breathe, the waters quench our thirst, and the soil and crop plant species give us food - we could not survive if any of them were missing. The ozone layer protects us from high levels of ultra-violet light, and the magnetic field, protects us from the solar wind, which we still see as the beautiful northern lights. The beauty of our Earth inspired me to break out into poetry, which comes from the awe and feeling of paradise that it invokes. In every direction, all aspects, and every season, day and night, makes me wonder. But coursing through my booklet there is a sense of purpose. Much of my poetry belongs to a recently developing tradition called, "Verse Journalism," that seeks to add a feeling of responsibility and purpose - something that is urgently needed if we are to intensely strive to develop alternatives to our current ways of doing things - whether it is in energy, or habitats, or transportation, or agriculture, or industry, or - last but not least - saving our dying global ecosystems, and then rejuvenating them. So besides an awe of and an enjoyment of the rest of nature (for we are a part of nature), you will find threads of our links to it and the planet, and what we need to do to steer ourselves in a different direction.