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Meet
Johnny Biosphere
Hi!
I'm Johnny Biosphere. This is my web site. I come from Earth. Where
do you come from?
I was born in Toronto on July 20, 1980, at the First Global Conference
on the Future. Dr. J. R. (Jack) Vallentyne, Senior Scientist at
the Canada Centre for Inland Waters was my papa. My mommy was Mother
Earth.
Frustrated by his inability to change self-destructive human behavior,
papa put a globe on his back to symbolize the bond between person
and planet.
Dr. Jack is a planetary ecologist by interest and training. He
has a B.A. from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, a Ph.D. from Yale University, an honorary D.Sc. from McMaster
University, and over 100 scientific publications to his credit,
including a book, The Algal Bowl: Lakes and Man.
Unfortunately, the poor man was dealt a tough hand for communicating
with people. As a scientist he had been trained to use big words
that most people find hard to pronounce and impossible to understand.
I came along to help him communicate with young people.
We started with a wordless symbol – a human with a globe on
his back.
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 The
Biosphere
Biosphere, is the name that scientists give
to the age-old living and life-supporting system of the Earth.
The Biosphere is so big and remote that most people never
think about it – until they see a picture of our planet
taken from space. Most people call it Earth – even though
all they can see is the Biosphere.
The Biosphere is our planetary ecosystem. It came into being
when life first appeared on Earth more than 3.6 billion years
ago. Since then it has evolved into an enormously diverse
global system. It encompasses the atmosphere, hydrosphere
(rivers, lakes and oceans), lithosphere (rocks, soils, and
perennially frozen ice), and an estimated ten to thirty million
different species of organisms. Our Earth is a miracle planet.
Yet, we are destroying the miracle. Nobody seems to care.
Or do they? "If
the world is going to change, it's going to be through the
children", says Johnny Biosphere.
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