One year on Earth

I ran across the image above as part of the Washington Post’s “40 maps that explain the world.” Created as part of NASA's Blue Marble project, it shows the annual seasonal changes and variations in vegetation. This is what makes life on this planet possible.

What struck me is how very different the two hemispheres are, with the snow cover expanding and contracting much more in the north than the south (though you can see the changes in New Zealand’s South Island).

But I think it also shows how fragile our planet is. As the Post put it, “…the Earth is, for all its political and social and religious divisions, still unified by the natural phenomena that make everything else possible.”

You’d think we’d take better care of it then, eh?

Tip o' the Hat to my friend Kyle in Hawaii who posted a link to the Post article on Google+.