From Asheville to Australia: Happy Birthday, Chuck Darwin

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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In my quest to land the Greatest Job in the World — blogging the tourism wonders of Hamilton Island off the coast of Australia’s Queensland for six months — I’m starting an irregular series dubbed “From Asheville to Australia.’ I’ll blog a little about the folks Down Under, and just see what happens.

The big news I see that’s coming right up is the 200th birthday of none other than Charles Darwin next week. This story notes that Australia, a stop along Darwin’s Beagle tour, plans some grand celebrations:

The great naturalist’s 200th birthday next Thursday will be celebrated in Sydney, around Australia and across the globe with dinners, public lectures, conferences, new books and exhibitions. November, as well, marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s most famous tome, On The Origin Of Species. Philip Batterham, a geneticist at the University of Melbourne and organiser of a conference in Melbourne next week called Evolution: The Experience, says it is appropriate that this year is also the 400th anniversary of Galileo turning his telescope to the skies. Both giants of science changed forever the view of our place in the world

This section of the story raises the more important implications of Darwin’s research:

Darwin’s birthday is also the perfect opportunity to consider our future, and whether our species will survive climate change, and how much damage will be done to ecosystems such as the Great Barrier Reef and tropical rainforests. “They’re intrinsically Darwinian questions,” Professor Batterham says.

Evolution, extinction and global warming will be the theme of a Dining With Darwin dinner in Sydney next Wednesday night, organised by the Australian Museum and Botanic Gardens Trust. The CSIRO scientist Michael Raupach, who is one of the speakers, says that our world has been shaped by evolutionary cycles of diversification and winnowing. “However, we are now facing such rapid environmental shifts from climate change that unguided evolution cannot keep up. Our only option is to use our brains as well, to guide us out of climate and ecological danger zones that we can foresee, before we blunder into them.”

We live on a finite planet, says Dr Raupach, co-chairman of the Global Carbon Project. “Our future depends on living within its means.”

We certainly do live on a fragile planet, and if we don’t start taking more action with greater impact, we’re not going to around much longer (speaking from an evolutionary point of view) to enjoy it. The Great Barrier Reef is quite a world wonder. So is the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, right here in Western North Carolina. It’s one of the most biological diverse areas above ground, and it faces similar environmental threats.

Let’s start taking care of our planet. And let’s send me to Australia so I can tell you about some of nature’s wonders that are currently in peril if we don’t.