"A single tiny island (England) is today keeping the world in chains. If an entire nation of 300 million took to similar economic exploitation it would strip the world bare like locusts."
Mohandas Gandhi, 1928
Photographs from space show the world shrouded in a thin veil of atmosphere. This gaseous film is the reason why there is life on our planet and not on others; without it the earth would be frozen, pitted and dead. Like Mars.
It took over two billion years for living cells to transform the toxic soup of the atmosphere. Oxygen combined with other elements to foster the rich variety of life that we know today. Gases interacted with bacteria, plankton and plants. Carbon was captured by photosynthesis and laid down in the earth's crust as coal, oil and gas. Complex systems of biodiversity evolved partly with complementary synergy, partly as a balance of competing interests and partly by the erection of barriers between species - all life forms interacting in ways that we will never fully comprehend. Humanity inherited a magical domain, a fascinating, beautiful and healthy world at a comfortable temperature.
