Our world of wonders

Do you know, dear reader, how unique you are? Your home is on Earth, the only stellar body known to harbour life. Earth began 4.5 billion years ago, when particles remaining from the sun were drawn together by gravity. At 93 million miles distance, Earth is warmed but not singed by sunlight. Its location creates a unique atmosphere for oxygen and water, which hydrate land and enable soils — these yield microorganisms and plants that perform photosynthesis, turning light into energy and carbon dioxide into oxygen. This mix — stellar, physical, chemical, geological and biological — has yielded over 8.7 million known plants, bacteria, fungi and animals, one of whom is you, with your unique DNA.



Each one of us exists among marvels, from luminous air to rolling seas, ancient forests and Earth’s curious beings. We stand amidst our benefactors too — humans can’t exist without microbes processing light, symbiotic fungi and plants, the friendships of animals and birds with crops. These enabled us to develop such that Shakespeare could observe, ‘And this, our life…finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones — and good in everything.’



However, that good can last only as long as our sense of wonder does. Nearly five centuries ago, the Copernican Revolution proved Earth wasn’t the solar system’s centre. The Anthropocene, starting 200 years ago, upended that awareness, imagining humans as supreme and Earth as our preserve. As we industrialise, litter and log, the World Economic Forum estimates we release upto 100 times more CO2 than Earth’s volcanic eruptions — CO2 is now gathering in our biosphere, causing ocean acidification, deoxygenation and extreme weather events.

As Times Evoke’s global experts emphasise, we can still preserve all that makes this world unique. But, to do so, we must regain our sense of wonder, marvelling at birds flying, maps inside their minds, at 27,000 feet, algae cheekily turning searing sulphuric acid explosions turquoise, bioluminescent clams glowing at depths with pressures hundreds of times greater than sea level. Only when we value such beings — and the ways they enable our lives — can the adaptations to save our world follow. Join Times Evoke on a voyage of the wonders we live amidst.