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John Elkington

John Elkington

A world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development.

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When was Gaia’s first selfie?

John Elkington · 21 June 2014 · Leave a Comment

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I was pondering anniversaries this morning, my 65th on Earth on the 23rd, 40 years in the environmental and sustainability fields this year, 20 years of the triple bottom line this year, and it occurred to me to wonder when Gaia – or life on Earth – first managed to take a ‘selfie,’ as we now seem to call photographic self-portraits?

I had been thinking of the NASA Gemini or Apollo missions, whose images I recall being wonderfully inspired by.

So I dug around a  bit – and found that it had happened considerably sooner than I had thought, indeed before I was born, in 1946. Scientists used a V2 rocket fired from the White Sands Missile Range to take a series of far-from-full-Earth photographs, but exciting, nonetheless. The image shown came from a camera on V-2 #13, launched on October 24, 1946. (Photo: White Sands Missile Range/Applied Physics Laboratory)

If being able to see yourself as others see you is a key step in self-actualisation, this was in important moment for all of us. That said, we still have a long, long way to go. But then perhaps the multi-millionaires and billionaires who, one day, will be rocketed into space in vehicles operated by the likes to Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic will come back transformed, in the same way many astronauts would be.

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Introduction

I began this blog with an entry reporting on a visit to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, on 30 September 2003. The blog element of the website has gone through several iterations since, with much of the older material still available.

Like so many things in my life, blog entries blur the boundaries between the personal and the professional. As explained on this site’s Home Page, the website and the blog are part platform for ongoing projects, part autobiography, and part accountability mechanism.

In addition, my blogs have appeared on many sites such as: Chinadialogue, CSRWire, Fast Company, GreenBiz, Guardian Sustainable Business, and the Harvard Business Review.

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About

John Elkington is a world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development. He is currently Founding Partner and Executive Chairman of Volans, a future-focused business working at the intersection of the sustainability, entrepreneurship and innovation movements.

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john@johnelkington.com  |  +44 203 701 7550 | Twitter: @volansjohn

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