Carl Sagan- Pale Blue Dot

[stlsaxman]

Happy Earth Day, Everyone!

" Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known." Carl Sagan 1990

[calimary]

1. Wonderful. And considering the climate we live in now, deeply disturbing.

[stlsaxman]

2. indeed, and yes- indeed.

[freshwest]

3. Ah, this is one of my favorites. I have a collection of his videos including Cosmos. When I was

President of the Young Democrats at my college and we worked with others organizing the first Earth Day in our area. This country progressed until the Reagan years and we need so much to bring this awareness back into the public mind. Occupy is doing its part, thanks for posting the perfect video for this celebration.

[HarryPowell]

4. A Humble Hope That We Save Ourselves From Ourselves

[AllenVanAllen]

5. This never gets old.

Thank you.

[drynberg]

6. SEND THIS TO ALL YOU KNOW AND ASK THEM TO PASS IT ON...

because this message of humble acceptance may, just may, save our sorry asses. Remember, every day needs to be Earth Day. Peace.

[hatrack]

7. I can't think of anything that comes close to saying what this does in about 500 words . . .

What a wonderful moment!

[VWolf]

8. The music that goes along with this gives me chills.

It meshes beautifully with the narration.

Sagan used it in the original Cosmos series. Vangelis, I believe.