Presenter(s): Guthrie Stafford − Philosophy
Faculty Mentor(s): Barbra Mossberg
Creative Work Session 3
Research Area: Science, Philosophy, Performing Arts
Our tiny blue-green jewel of a planet may not be much in the unimaginable vastness of space, but if it matters to us then we’d better show it. At least that’s what Carl Sagan had in mind when he petitioned for the Voyager space probe to turn around and take one final photo of our planet before it left the solar system, traveling on into the dark, never to return. This picture shows the Earth, the totality of our history and the history of life itself, as a single, pale blue pixel suspended like a mote of dust in a sunbeam. For Sagan, this image underscored the painful absurdity of our treatment of each other and of our only home. In translating his words on the subject into song, my hope is to bring this message to my own generation. Our parents set out to save the world and somewhere along the way got distracted by mortgage payments. It now falls on us to sidestep tribalism and partisan myopia, and we are already struggling under the weight of this responsibility. We must step back, way back, and see the world as it really is. No one is coming to save us from ourselves. There’s nowhere we can run to if things don’t work out. We have only one chance, one planet, one home. It is a herculean task. That is why I’ve tried to convey its urgency in one of the most powerful ways I know how: song.