Viewing the Earth from Space: A Major Change in Nature Religion?

A link to a site about an exhibit and conference in German devoted to the “California ideology,” symbolized by a cover from Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog  from 1968.

The image of the “blue planet,” a new perspective of the earth as seen from the outside, is one of the most popular images in history. This image, more than any other, has shaped the popular notion of the age of the “whole world” and globalization, from a worldwide society linked by the Internet to the current debate on the climate. Using artworks and materials from cultural history, the exhibition will critically explore the application of ecological-systemic concepts to society, politics, and aesthetics.

And how it ended up as a way to sell smart phones.

That the photo of the earth from space changed consciousness on some level is a given of environmental writing. My only concern is that it feeds the “everything started in the 1960s” meme, which downplays the long role of nature-as-source-of-sacred value in American religion, going back to the early 19th century. Catherine Albanese described it well.