President Obama took his message of environmental stewardship to Georgetown University today in order to enlist the younger generation’s help in saving the planet. He began his appeal by recalling the Apollo 8 mission of 1968, when humans for the very first time captured a photograph of the earth as a whole. “It was an image of Earth,” the president told the audience, “beautiful; breathtaking; a glowing marble of blue oceans, and green forests, and brown mountains brushed with white clouds, rising over the surface of the moon.”
“And that image in the photograph, that bright blue ball rising over the moon’s surface, containing everything we hold dear — the laughter of children, a quiet sunset, all the hopes and dreams of posterity — that’s what’s at stake. That’s what we’re fighting for,” he concluded, much, much later. “And if we remember that, I’m absolutely sure we’ll succeed.”
Heady stuff indeed. The National Journal’s Amy Harder covers energy and environmental issues, and she was there today to capture her own image of the planet, or at least the tiny part of it just minutes before packed with college students who would scurry off to make the planet a better place for their children and grandchildren.
Proof that even a crowd of environmentalists can leave behind a bit of trash. The remains of Obama's speech: pic.twitter.com/P8fEfVlL0O
— Amy Harder (@AmyAHarder) June 25, 2013
