To The Ocean Futures Community:
 This SeaWiFS image shows Typhoon Saomai whirling along China's east coast. West of the storm China is largely cloud free. A pall of haze (likely air pollution) lies over much of the region. View photo and information at NASA website. Photo Credit: Provided by the SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE Image Date: 09-15-2000 |
On September 14, I was at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. It is a thrilling place, filled with technology that helps us to understand our natural world and provides a showcase for the tools NASA develops to help solve our environmental problems. On that day, I had the pleasure of participating in a special event showcasing some of NASA's recent findings about the Earth. The audience included the general public and distinguished invited guests, Ghassem R. Asrar, Congressman James T. Walsh, Al Diaz from the Goddard Space Flight Center, The Honorable Daniel S. Goldin-Administrator of NASA Headquarters, and Frank Kraus of Lockheed Martin Corporation, to name a few. My role, as anchor-presenter, was to describe how the bigger picture of how studying the Earth will help yield substantial practical knowledge to all of our society.
For over forty years, NASA has provided us with dramatic visual documentation of the Earth and its changes over time. NASA images taken aboard Apollo spacecrafts, Space Shuttle vehicles and satellites circling high above the Earth send back an important message for people everywhere. They show us that EVERYTHING is CONNECTED -- the sea and the atmosphere, both of these to the land, and all of them to the fate of humanity. Because of these significant connections, human actions in one area have direct implications upon the health of the entire planet.
I applaud the monumental work of NASA in helping us to monitor the planet to better understand how it works and for providing vital data to those who try to manage it. My organization, Ocean Futures Society, supports NASA's public education goals and will act as a partner in helping to provide the public with a better understanding of the importance of our role as caretaker of our home, as we search for a more sustainable future.
I invite you to learn more by reading the complete transcript of my NASA address entitled, New Windows on a Changing Planet.
Respectfully yours,
Jean-Michel Cousteau
President, Ocean Futures
To learn more about NASA programs, click here.
