Little Ball of Blue

Find a lever long enough,             Amaj7  Bm
Find a place to stand.                    E7   Amaj7 G F#7
Anyone can move the world.       F#  Bm G+ Bm7
Anybody can.                                  Bm9 E+
Find a way that’s wide enough for       A7  A+
Walking hand in hand.    .                      Dmaj7   G7
Only takes a few,                                      F#7
Only takes a few.                                      Bm  Bm9  E+

Just a little ball of blue,                    Bm   E+
All the stars above.                            Amaj7   A#dim
If you linger on the view,                  Bm  F#+ F#7
Bound to fall in love.                         Bm  Bm9   E+

All the ways we chase the world,     Amaj7  Bm
Better understand.                             E  Amaj7  G F#
Never will replace the world.            F#   Bm G+ Bm7
Wasn’t made by man.                         Bm9 E+
Such a sin to waste a world.              A7 A+
Wasn’t in the plan.                              Dmaj7  G7
Only takes a few,                                  F#
Only takes a few.                                  Bm  Bm9 E+

Planetary chemistry,                           Bm E+
Each tiny life contains                        Amaj7   A#dim
All the waters of the sea,                    Bm   F#7
dancing in our veins                            Bm   Bm9 E+     

On a web of miracle,                            Amaj7  Bm
Hanging on a string                             E  Amaj7  G F#
You and I, we’re woven in                   F#  Bm  G+ Bm7
To the scheme of things                       Bm9 E+
See the string unraveling, yet             A7  A+
Hesitate to change.                               Dmaj7  G7
Only takes a few, .                                 F#
Only takes a few                                    Bm  Bm9  E+

Just a little ball of blue,                       Bm   E+
All the stars above.                               Amaj7   A#dim
If you linger on the view,                    Bm  F#+ F#7
Bound to fall in love.                           Bm  Bm9   E+
Bound to fall, bound to fall in love —   F#    Bm  Bm9 E+
Bound to fall, bound to fall in love —   F#    Bm  Bm9 E+   A6-9

©Doug Hendren 2023

What’s it about? Listening to some of the self-promoting politicians and billionaires in our midst, one might get the idea that places like Earth are easy to come by, and that we are on the verge of being able to set up shop on other planets. Their lack of attention to biological realities suggests they don’t have a very good grasp of how exquisitely our size, shape, chemistry and physical structures are matched to our planetary home. There is no Planet B. The striking similarities between our blood and sea water are not accidental. Most life on earth evolved out of an oceanic environment. We are exquisitely suited to breathing our atmosphere’s particular mixture of oxygen, nitrogen and other gases. We require our earth’s gravitational field to keep our bones healthy. It only takes a few weeks in space for astronauts to start losing bone and muscle mass.

Earth is a “pale blue dot” in space, as astronomer Carl Sagan famously observed. It is an exquisitely interwoven and finely tuned ecosystem of life designed to thrive right where we are. By altering the chemistry of our oceans and atmosphere, we are spinning our world out of balance and us into deep trouble. Earth will survive, but civilization as we know it may well not. Rather than spend untold treasure and energy trying to travel to the stars, what if we just tried to set our own house in better order? Learning how to align our global economy, transportation and food systems better with the natural world will take a lot of work, but is entirely within our capabilities. It sure beats letting things unravel!