Executive summary by darmansjah
That seize our imagination, “ Land is immortal, for it harbors the
mysteries of creation.” – Anwar Sadat.
We humans see very little of the planet’s surface in our
lifetimes. About two-thirds of that surface, of course, is below the ocean; of
the remaining third, much is covered with ice, or barren rock, or uninhabitable
mountains. Human settlements cluster around
coasts and rivers and the flatlands that we have tamed and cultivated.
Our cities and our gentle farmlands have their claims to
beauty, but the landscapes that seize our imaginations are those that reveal
the elemental power of nature. We feel awe in places where the forces that shape
the Earth are still visibly at work. We marvel at places such as Yellowstone,
where an enormous caldera heats bubbling pools and propels geysers skyward. In the
Sahara,
we witness how shifting climate patterns took a swampy land, dried it into a
scorching expanse of sand and scrub, and now are bringing greenery back to its
edges.
In New Zealand’s Tongariro Naational Park,
sacred volcanoes rise amid waterfalls. In Patagonia, winds sweep across lonely
grasslands backed by the cruel spikes of the Andes. Krubera,
the deepest cave yet explored, descends into a limestone blackness that seems
to take us back into the darkness of time. Even some of humanity’s grandest
constructions, like the magnificent temples of Angkor Wat,
have been easily disassembled by nature. Although these places may be hostile
to human life, they still enthrall us.
In these parts of the world, we can see the land forming
itself on a grand scale, following its own natural logic, indifferent to our
needs. We experience something greater and stronger than ourselves and know it
as wonderful!.
Beautiful and Deadly
As lava pours into the sea near Kalapana,
Hawai’I, it raises a cloud of hydrochloric acid steam that reflects the lava’s
glow. The Kilauea Volcano largely destroyed the town
of Kalapana in 1990.
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