The other main thought that struck me was the starkness between the natural beauty of life and the manicured version of life I walked back into right as I left the zoo.  In a short hour walk I had seen a wide variety of the diversity of life.  Even in these contrived unnatural habitats you could feel the wildness and raw energy of life that they represented.  Walking out of the park I remained in the same mode of gazing as a wildlife spectator and saw animals leading other animals they had specifically breed for their own enjoyment.  I saw shortly cut grass, flowers, and trees strategically positioned.   On one hand it all seemed so fake, that we in our modern industrialized age are so desperate to keep natural life around us that we find ways to bring it into our homes and squeeze it into the small pieces of land untouched by concrete.  And on the other hand I can see it as a matter of taking care of and dressing the garden we have found ourselves in.  Both persepectives pay tribute to the deep need that humans have to be surrounded by and embedded in the natural world.

Why do you think being in nature is rejuvenating?  What is the ideal relationship between man and nature?

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via National Geographic News

Anne Minard March 19, 2008
A new study is challenging the long-standing notion that the whole solar system formed from the same raw materials.

Until now most scientists had believed that the inner solar system bodies—Mercury, Venus, Earth, its moon, and Mars—had the same composition as primitive meteorites called chondrites.

But, problematically, Earth’s chemistry doesn’t quite match.

Now, French researcher Guillaume Caro, from Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques in France, and his colleagues say that the makeup of Mars and the moon don’t correspond either.

It turns out the three bodies may be more similar to each other than the chondrite-rich asteroids located between Mars and Jupiter.

Caro and his team say scientists may now have to revisit the idea that chondrites represent the building blocks for the whole solar system.

“What our results suggest is that the sorting of the elements that make up these planets may have happened at a much earlier stage than had been believed,” said Alex Halliday, a study co-author from Oxford University.

“The composition of these worlds is inconsistent with them simply forming out of large ‘lumps’ of stony meteorites like those we see today in the asteroid belt.”

The study appears in this week’s issue of the journal Nature.

Read the Full Article

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What does this have to do with the Mormon Endowment ceremony as presented in LDS temples? The presentation includes a portrayal of the creation of this earth. In the temples of the pioneers the setting was set with murals paints on the walls of the creation room. Since the inception of the video presentation of the endowment the creation story presentation has been augmented by beautiful cinematography highlighting the beauties of this earth. Considering the endowment has been streamlined into a two-hour presentation compared to the all-day experience as Joseph Smith originally shared it, I think it could be completely appropriate to consider mentally inserting this Planet Earth series right in the middle of the story of the creation of the earth and celebrating the glory and beauty of the creation.

In the last couple years I have found myself becoming more and more of an environmentalist, hence asking for the Planet Earth Series for Christmas or writing a post like this. This could be considered a major shift from my previous behavior. When I was in junior high I had an overly sentimental fanatic environmentalist teacher and I think her pushing of her own environmental agenda rubbed me the wrong way, turning me off to the word, environmentalist, and justifying my occasional joke about the extremist.

As I look back and try to make sense of this change I cite a couple experiences explaining my drift towards becoming a nature-lover:

1. Living with quick access to wilderness

I loved living along the Wasatch Front during college. I regret I did not take greater advantage of it. Living there it was possible to completely get away from civilization in a matter of 20 minutes by going to the back side of Timp or up Rock Creek Canyon. I loved running on those trails and, even more so, biking the trails because you could get deep in the forest so quickly. I miss having that wilderness as my backyard.

2. Reading Approaching Zion and Nibley’s biography

Nibley had fascinating views on the environment eons before they were on general political radar screen. I’m also amazed at how early and consistent his views were.

3. Hiking in Zion National Park

Again, I regret having only discovered the beauty of Zions my last year in Utah. One of the most beautiful places on earth.

4. Wildlilfe in Ghana

When I was working in Ghana my mates and I tried to hit all the big guidebook-recommended places, most of which were associated with the natural world as the author was a nature-loving Brit who obviously loved birdwatching as it became a constant recommendation throughout his review. Ghana wildlife parks don’t have the same level of tourists that their East Africa counterparts recieve so we were able to experience wild elephants, monkeys, bat caves, tropical jungle waterfalls, and jungle canopy walks in relative isolation and proximity.

5. Planet Earth in HD

Perhaps a rare justification for watching television and one I would love to see in high-def on the largest screen possible. In this series I have been able to experience nature as I would never be able to experience it personally in one lifetime (the behind the scenes extras make that absolutely clear and make one appreciate the film even more).

It must pain the Creator to see the natural world systematically pushed aside by mankind. When we think about the natural world I think we should be thinking about stewardship and not milking it for all we can get. If my 7th grade teacher could see me now…

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Watching the evolution-religion discussion is particularly interesting due to the extremely strong reactions it produces from both sides. It truly is difficult to find objective, balanced discussions. Before I write about my own perspectives I offer two articles I recently came across on Newsvine that I think represent an honest exploration of the theory and the surrounding discussion of the topic. The second only strengthens my confidence in the integrity and unabashed honesty of Ron Paul. Enjoy.

The Metaphysics of Evolution

Ron Paul and Evolution

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This is all in good fun

Behind the silliness are some potentially more serious and thought-provoking questions:

Is chance really the driving mechanism behind our lives? Is the family, location, and religion of our birth simply chance? Is all of life an accident? That is the answer of science. I’m in the middle of reading E.O. Wilson’s The Diversity of Life and in a section I recently read he makes the point that everything, the diversity of life, all of it, is an accident, “beauty arises from error.” Life is a statistical anomaly. There is no plan, there is no meaning.

The question of placement at birth in such vastly different conditions makes absolutely no sense without a before. There must be a story before. Reincarnation is probably the most easily recognized example of an attempt to explain the issue. Most do not want to touch the issue with a ten foot pole or have so very little to go on to even be able to speak about it. How can a God of justice and mercy be maintained in the face of so much inequality from birth? Such a God falls apart.

So the question is about a before. What’s the story? What happened? Why did it happen? Most of the world’s religions begin with this life as Act I and the afterlife as Act II. The whole story changes if this life is Act II? I think it is interesting that it is relatively easy to conceive of living indefinitely yet it is absolutely mindboggling to think of an endless before.

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