Prime Meridian newsletter 1
Above: The British isles and adjacent areas of western Europe (NASA).
The Prime Meridian newsletter is produced as part of the outreach programme of the Ecospheres Project.
It follows global environmental issues alongside the unfolding cycle of the seasons in Southern England.
South East England is a definitive location on the globe, not only because the Prime Meridian passes through it, but because the internationally-recognised zero degrees Meridian was established here, at the old Royal Observatory at Greenwich.
The positions of stars in the sky were mapped by timing their passage across the meridian and today, the Prime Meridian is a place where Earth and sky and time and space meet in visitor’s minds.
For this reason, Prime Meridian is a good title for a publication that deals with geography and the seasons whilst posing questions about the future of the world upon which we live.
In common with others campaigning for ecological awareness, we argue that everyone must shoulder responsibility for stewardship of our planet’s natural life support systems and of the beauty and biodiversity of our landscape.
One of Prime Meridian‘s roles, however, is to tackle an aspect of the environmental challenge that has been largely neglected.
We are emphasising the essential role that must be played by scientific research in monitoring and understanding global change, and so, in enabling us to better protect human communities around the world. The human species will be serving a tough apprenticeship, because scientists still have much to learn about our world and about our impact upon it. There is no guarantee that we shall graduate successfully.
“Planetary stewardship” is a much-used cliché, but only by deepening our working knowledge of our home planet may our civilisation aspire in any meaningful sense to planetary stewardship.
Above: the passage of the seasons in Kent, England. The top photo shows a snow-bound Beacon Wood in January 2010. The display of bluebells (2013) was on the floor of a thin woodland strip on another site. The hawthorn overlooking the fields was taken on a bright final day of May, 2010 on the margins of Beacon Wood, and the display of colourful toadstools appeared on the woodland floor in October, 2010.
Prime Meridian Archive
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
PM 51. March 29, 2016
PM 54. May 28, 2016
2017
PM 65. January 31, 2017
PM 68. March 31, 2017
ECOSPHERES PROJECT 