by Ron Rayborne
“Looking back the Pliocene [or the timeframe within the Pliocene now called the Miocene] is something of a paradise lost, a climax of the Age of Mammals before the coming of the cold; a time when life was richer, more exuberant than ever before or after.” ~ Björn Kurtén. The Age of Mammals. [chapter] The Pliocene: Epoch of Climax.
Quotes about the State of the Biosphere
“Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about.... Our massive tampering with the world's interdependent web of life — coupled with the environmental damage inflicted by deforestation, species loss, and climate change — could trigger widespread adverse effects, including unpredictable collapses of critical biological systems whose interactions and dynamics we only imperfectly understand.... We the undersigned, senior members of the world's scientific community, hereby warn all humanity of what lies ahead. A great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated.” ~ 1992 World Scientists' Warning to Humanity, signed by 1,700 of the world's leading scientists, including the majority of Nobel laureates in the sciences.
“During a remarkably short period of time, we have lost a quarter of the world's topsoil and a fifth of its agricultural land, altered the composition of the atmosphere profoundly, and destroyed a major proportion of our forests and other natural habitats without replacing them. Worst of all, we have driven the rate of biological extinction, the permanent loss of species, up several hundred times beyond its historical levels, and are threatened with the loss of a majority of all species by the end of the 21st century.” ~ Peter Raven, past President of AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) in the Forward to AAAS Atlas of Population & Environment.
“Among the environmental trends undermining our future are shrinking forests, expanding deserts, falling water tables, collapsing fisheries, disappearing species, and rising temperatures. The temperature increases bring crop-withering heat waves, more-destructive storms, more-intense droughts, more forest fires, and, of course, ice melting. We are crossing natural thresholds that we cannot see and violating deadlines that we do not recognize.” ~ Lester Brown. Plan B4.: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.
“The wetlands, forests, savannahs, estuaries, coastal fisheries and other habitats that recycle air, water and nutrients for all living creatures are being irretrievably damaged. In effect, one species is now a hazard to the other 10 million or so on the planet, and to itself. ‘Human activity is putting such a strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted.’” ~ Tim Radford, science editor. Two-thirds of world's resources 'used up’. The Guardian, 29 March 2005, reporting on the Millennium Ecological Assessment.
“The flip side of urbanization is what we are leaving behind on our way to a world of hundred-story office buildings, high-rise residences and landscapes of glass, cement, artificial light and electronic interconnectivity. It's no accident that as we celebrate the urbanization of the world, we are quickly approaching another historic watershed: the disappearance of the wild. Rising population; growing consumption of food, water and building materials; expanding road and rail transport; and urban sprawl continue to encroach on the remaining wild, pushing it to extinction.” ~ Jeremy Rifkin. Washington Post. Sunday, December 17, 2006. The Risks of Too Much City.
“We have always had reluctance to see a tract of land which is empty of men as anything but a void. The ‘waste howling wilderness’ of Deuteronomy is typical. The Oxford Dictionary defines wilderness as wild or uncultivated land which is occupied ‘only’ by wild animals. Places not used by us are ‘wastes.’ Areas not occupied by us are ‘desolate.’ Could the desolation be in the soul of man?” ~ John A. Livingston, in Borden Spears, ed., Wilderness Canada. 1970
“Time and space - time to be alone, space to move about - these may well become the great scarcities of tomorrow.” ~ Edwin Way Teale. Autumn Across America. 1956
“We never know the worth of water till the well is dry.” ~ Thomas Fuller. Gnomologia. 1732
Quotes from Astronauts about The Earth
“A Chinese tale tells of some men sent to harm a young girl who, upon seeing her beauty, become her protectors rather than her violators. That's how I felt seeing the Earth for the first time. I could not help but love and cherish her.” ~ Taylor Wang
“The colors are stunning. In a single view, I see - looking out at the edge of the earth: red at the horizon line, blending to orange and yellow, followed by a thin white line, then light blue, gradually turning to dark blue and various gradually darker shades of gray, then black and a million stars above. It’s breathtaking.” ~ Willie McCool
“A tear-drop of green.” ~ Ron McNair
“Suddenly, from behind the rim of the Moon, in long, slow-motion moments of immense majesty, there emerges a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate sky-blue sphere laced with slowly swirling veils of white, rising gradually like a small pearl in a thick sea of black mystery. It takes more than a moment to fully realize this is Earth . . . home.” ~ Edgar Mitchell
“My view of our planet was a glimpse of divinity.” ~ Edgar Mitchell
“If somebody'd said before the flight, ‘Are you going to get carried away looking at the earth from the moon?’ I would have say, ‘No, no way.’ But yet when I first looked back at the earth, standing on the moon, I cried.” ~ Alan Shepard
“The Earth reminded us of a Christmas tree ornament hanging in the blackness of space. As we got farther and farther away it diminished in size. Finally it shrank to the size of a marble, the most beautiful marble you can imagine. That beautiful, warm, living object looked so fragile, so delicate, that if you touched it with a finger it would crumble and fall apart. Seeing this has to change a man.” ~ James Irwin
“We came all this way to explore the moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the earth.” ~ William Anders
“Before I flew I was already aware of how small and vulnerable our planet is; but only when I saw it from space, in all its ineffable beauty and fragility, did I realize that human kind's most urgent task is to cherish and preserve it for future generations.” ~ Sigmund Jähn
“Oddly enough the overriding sensation I got looking at the earth was, my god that little thing is so fragile out there.” ~ Mike Collins
“For the first time in my life I saw the horizon as a curved line. It was accentuated by a thin seam of dark blue light—our atmosphere. Obviously this was not the ocean of air I had been told it was so many times in my life. I was terrified by its fragile appearance.” ~ Ulf Merbold
“On the one hand, we can see how indescribably beautiful the planet that we have been is, but on the other hand, we can really, clearly see how fragile it is.... The atmosphere for instance...the atmosphere when viewed from space is paper thin, and to think that this paper thin layer is all that separates every living thing from the vacuum of space and all that protects us is really a sobering thought.” ~ Ron Garan
“To fly in space is to see the reality of Earth, alone. The experience changed my life and my attitude toward life itself. I am one of the lucky ones.” ~ Roberta Bondar
“Now I know why I'm here. Not for a closer look at the moon, but to look back at our home, the Earth.” ~ Alfred Worden
“When you're finally up at the moon looking back on earth, all those differences and nationalistic traits are pretty well going to blend, and you're going to get a concept that maybe this really
is one world and why the hell can't we learn to live together like decent people.” ~ Frank Borman
“The first day or so we all pointed to our countries. The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day, we were aware of only one Earth.” ~ Sultan bin Salman Al-Saud
“This planet is not terra firma. It is a delicate flower and it must be cared for. It's lonely. It's small. It's isolated, and there is no resupply. And we are mistreating it. Clearly, the highest loyalty we should have is not to our own country or our own religion or our hometown or even to ourselves. It should be to, number two, the family of man, and number one, the planet at large. This is our home, and this is all we've got.” ~ Scott Carpenter
“I left Earth three times and found no other place to go. Please take care of Spaceship Earth.” ~ Wally Schirra
Acknowledgements and Credits
The author wishes to thank the following people for their kind use of the quotations in this book:
Excerpts from “How to Tell a True War Story” from THE THINGS THEY CARRIED by Tim O’Brien. Copyright © 1990 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved
For quote by Wolfram M. Kürschner, Zlatko Kvacˇek, and David L. Dilcher in The impact of Miocene atmospheric carbon dioxide fluctuations on climate and the evolution of terrestrial ecosystems, p. 452, Copyright © 2008, National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A., Kay McLaughlin for Diane Sullenberger, Executive Editor PNAS
For quote by W. David Lambert: with kind permission from Springer Science+Business Media: “Ecosystems”, Functional Convergence of Ecosystems: Evidence from Body Mass Distributions of North American Late Miocene Mammal Fauna, Volume 9, Issue 1, pp 97-118, February 2006, W. David Lambert
For quote by Lester Brown: Earth Policy Institute
For quote by Thomas Berry: The Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale University
For quote by Peter Raven: Peter Raven, Missouri Botanical Garden
For quote by Björn Kurtén: Marina Kurtén, MA, Translator, Information liaison, Department of Computer Science, University of Helsinki
For quotes by S. David Webb: S. David Webb, Florida Museum of Natural History
For quote by Jeremy Rifkin: Christian Pollard, Technical Publications and Media Coordinator, Office of Jeremy Rifkin, Foundation on Economic Trends
For quote by Tim Radford: Helen Wilson, Content Sales Manager, Syndication, Guardian News and Media Ltd.
For quotes by David Rains Wallace: Greta Lindquist, Subsidiary Rights Assistant, University of California Press
For quote by Bruce MacFadden: Bruce MacFadden, Florida Museum of Natural History
For quote by Frederick Crews: Frederick Crews, University of California, Berkeley
For by quote Edwin Way Teale: Deana Dupree, Permissions Manager, St. Martin's Press / Macmillan Children's Publishing Group
For quote by Edward Abbey: Reprint by permission of Don Congdon Associates, Inc.
© 1987 by Edward Abbey.
The Voice was written by Brendan Graham, Peermusic (UK) Ltd.
It’s In the Rain and If I Could Be Where You Are are Enya (Ni Bhraonain) songs, and were written by Roma Ryan, EMI Music Publishing / Sony/ATV
Special thanks to the following people for their assistance
My wonderful daughter, Carissa Rayborne, for finding and correcting errors throughout.
My brother Rod Rayborne, for his outstanding artistry in the creation of the cover of this book and “Miocene California”, and for patiently putting up with my pickiness.
Paleoartist Marianne Collins, for letting me use her beautiful Miocene painting.
My college English instructor, Lynn Steiner, for her inspirational teaching, and for graciously giving me two weeks of her time to edit Opalescence.
Those scientists who kindly allowed me to ask and answered my questions, including (but not limited to):
S. David Webb, Ph.D. Distinguished Research Professor and curator, Florida Museum of Natural History. President, Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.
Jere Lipps, Ph.D., Director of the John D. Cooper Archaeological and Paleontological Center, Santa Ana, and Professor Emeritus, Department of Integrative Biology, UC Berkeley
John Wakabayashi, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, California State University, Fresno.
William L. Bilodeau, Ph.D. Professor of Geology and Chair, Geology Department, California Lutheran University.
The lovely Lisa Kelly of Celtic Woman, whose incomparable singing inspired me throughout.
Los Angeles Times Book Reviewer, Michael Harris, for reading and commenting on a draft copy.
The publishing teams at Smashwords and Amazon for patiently walking me through the process.
And finally, to Mother Earth, which has provided so much for so long to her many offspring.
About The Author
Ron Rayborne, together with his brother Rod, has always felt a special affinity for our unique planet. A long-time California hiker, many of the experiences within Opalescence are actual occurrences. Ron is an interested non-scientist. To learn more go to
midmiocene.wordpress.com
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