By Mary O’KEEFE

As a kid, I remember seeing the “Blue Marble” photo for the first time. It was in 1972 and it was the first time we saw our planet as a whole. 

The photograph was taken by the crew of Apollo 17, the final Apollo mission, as they traveled to the moon. 

“For the first time, the Apollo trajectory made it possible to photograph the south polar ice cap,” according to NASA. 

The crew included astronauts Eugene A. Cernan, mission commander, Ronald E. Evans, command module pilot, and Harrison H. Schmitt, lunar module pilot. 

“I can see the lights of Southern California, Bob,” said Schmitt to ground control about one and a half hours into the flight. “Man’s field of stars on the Earth is competing with the heavens.” 

I had that photo on my bedroom wall. For many of us, it changed the way we looked at our planet. 

I know future generations probably don’t understand the impact of this photo. It was before satellite, Hubble telescope and SPHEREx images we now have. It was during the most amazing time of human space exploration although even for my generation in 1972 traveling to the moon seemed normal. 

But it was the sight of that “Blue Marble” that affected my friends and myself more than actually lunar landings. The Earth seemed so beautiful, fragile … and alone. 

In December 2022, 50 years later to the minute since the original Apollo 17 shot was taken of the Earth, another image was taken by a satellite orbiting a million miles away. 

According to an article in BBC, “How 50 years of climate change has changed the face of the ‘Blue Marble’ from space,” “This time, a set of images taken 15 minutes apart, revealing noticeable changes to our planet’s surface, the result of 50 years of global warming.”

The old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words has never been more true than when looking at these two contrasting images. 

The most glaring thing you can see in the 2022 image is the deforestation and loss of vegetation. 

You know when you haven’t seen someone in a while, find out they have been sick and then see a photo of them. Sometimes it takes your breath away when you see the decline. Your heart sinks and you wish you would have known earlier so you could have been there more to help them. Well that’s how I felt looking at these two photos. I know climate change is accelerating due to greenhouse gases. I know the Earth is not well, and yet I didn’t realize how far the disease of climate change had gone until I saw this photo. 

The good news is that we can make the Earth well again. It may not be as beautiful as it once was but we can bring back a lot of the original big blue marble sparkle if we all work together to educate others about climate change and all do our part not matter how small, to protect our planet. 

For the weather in our part of the marble, we may be seeing signs of more thunderstorms in the mountains today but we are not expected to see any rain – just high cumulus clouds. 

Then Friday through Monday the June Gloom should burn away early and our temperatures will climb to highs in the mid to high 80s.