Planet Earth, Our Mother

Beautiful! Thank you for this video.

I'm being treated to a display by Mother Nature today. I live in the woods in the foothills of the Smokies. I have a few acres of trees on a rolling hillside. I've had my yard certified as a backyard wild life refuge.

Today there is a gorgeous fog so thick, I can't see the bottom of my driveway. I am floating in space, unmoored from the world in a dreaming forest.

Earth abides.

We may not but the Earth will, it was here before us and will be here when we depart.

Doesn't mean we shouldn't be good stewards of course, if only for our own self interest.

It is amazing, aweful (fills me with awe as well as the modern meaning), wonderful and terrifying.

For your final exam, take either Mars or Venus, and produce a planet like Earth as photographed above, or take a sufficient collection of asteroids and produce a habitat that is comparable.

Your planet should function within stable bounds on the hundred-million-year time scale.

For extra credit, produce a native species capable of outgrowing said planet without wasting it.

We look forward to your completion of the class and graduation as an intelligent designer.