Seeing Our Planet Whole: a Cultural and Ethical View of Earth Observation ― The Cultural and Ethical Implications of Earth Observation for Environmental Protection

This book shows how our new-foundability to observe the Earth from “the necessary distance” has wide andprofound cultural and ethical implications. First of all, it is the outcome ofspeculations and investigations of human beings in relation to their homeplanet carried out over millennia. In particular, it reveals a split betweenthe ancient idea of the Earth as nurturing mother and the more recent conceptionof the Earth as a neutral resource able to be infinitely exploited byhumankind. The 1968 Earthrise photograph, showing the beauty and fragility ofthe Earth, helped spark a worldwide environmental movement; now thecomprehensive coverage of global change provided by satellites has thepotential to convince us beyond reasonable doubt of the huge alterations beingwrought upon the Earth and its climate system as a result of human actions, andof the need to act more responsibly.

Harry Eyres has become one of the most eloquentadvocates of the worldwide Slow movement. He holds an MA in English fromTrinity College, Cambridge (where he was an Entrance and Senior Scholar), theDiploma de Estudios Hispanicos from Barcelona University and an MSc inEnvironmental Assessment and Evaluation from LSE, where he graduated with aDistinction. Having worked for leading newspapers and magazines as a theatrecritic, wine writer and poetry editor, in 2004 he created the weekly Slow Lanecolumn in FT Weekend, which ran for eleven years until April 2015. Slow Lanecovered cultural and environmental themes and consistently advocated a lessconsumption-focussed lifestyle. Eyres is also the author of The Beginner’s Guide to Plato’s The Republic(Hodder & Stoughton), the memoir Horace and Me: Life Lessons from anAncient Poet (Bloomsbury: short-listed for the PEckerley Prize in 2014), andseveral books on wine. He lives in London.