భూమి

**December 24, 1968** — Apollo 8 mission. Three NASA astronauts — **Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, William Anders** — first humans to leave Earth's gravity; orbit Moon. December 21 launched; December 24 lunar orbit insertion. **Christmas Eve 1968**. Astronauts in lunar orbit; Earth visible rising over Moon's horizon. **Anders** scrambled for camera. "Oh my God, look at that picture over there! There's the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty!" he said. Anders snapped what became **"Earthrise"** — most influential photograph of 20th century. Anders later: "We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth." Back on Earth — December 24, 1968. **TV broadcast Apollo 8 reading Genesis 1:1-10** (creation story). Half the world's population watched. **Earthrise** photo published front pages globally. Single image that **birthed environmental movement** of 1970s. **Earth Day 1970**. **Greenpeace 1971**. **EPA 1972** (USA). **Implications**: - **Earth has no borders from space** — small fragile blue-green ball. - **Pollution doesn't stop at country lines**. - **We are one species on one planet**. - **Astronauts "overview effect"** — life-changing perspective. **1990 — Voyager 1 'Pale Blue Dot'** NASA Voyager 1 spacecraft launched 1977; passed Saturn 1980; **Carl Sagan** convinced NASA in 1990 — Voyager point camera back; take Earth photo from 6 billion km. **The result: Earth as a 0.12 pixel dot** in scattered sunbeam. **Sagan**: "That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives... There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known." **India's first photograph of Earth** 1975 — **Aryabhata** (India's first satellite, USSR launched). 1980 — Rohini; SLV-3 first Indian-made rocket. **Earth observation** began routine 1988 — IRS-1A. ISRO **Cartosat** since 2007 — high-resolution Indian Earth photographs. **2023 Aditya-L1** spacecraft — captured Earth full disc images from Lagrange Point 1. **Greta Thunberg** 2018 — 15 ఏళ్లు. Sweden. Read about climate change; horrified. **August 2018 — school strike for climate**. Solo at Swedish parliament every Friday. World noticed. 2019 — **2 million children striked globally**. UN speech: "How dare you!" Time Person of Year 2019. **Ridhima Pandey** — Uttarakhand 9-year-old; **2017 — sued Indian government for climate inaction**. India's Greta. 2019 — UN complaint with 16 children including Greta against G20 nations. Story inspired Indian climate activism. **Telugu climate champions**: - **Sunita Narain** (CSE Delhi; though Bengali, India climate spokesperson). - **Soumya Swaminathan** (former WHO chief scientist; India climate-health lead). - **Indian forestry leaders** — UP, Karnataka, Andhra greenery initiatives. - **Hyderabad Greenery Clubs** — schools planting drives. **Earth Day every year — April 22**. 195+ countries; 1 billion+ people events. **Telugu families environmental practice**: 1) **No plastic bags** — bring cloth bags shopping. 2) **AC 26°C minimum**; fan first. 3) **EV charging** — Tata Nexon EV, Ola Scooter. 4) **Tulasi+chamanti+rose** plants every home. 5) **No food waste** — exact serving. 6) **Recycling** — paper, plastic separate. 7) **Walking-cycling** — short distances. 8) **Solar rooftop** — PM Surya Ghar 2024. 9) **Rainwater harvesting** — apartments. 10) **Water conservation** — 1-min showers. **Hyderabad green initiatives**: 1) **Telangana Haritha Haram** — KCR planting drive 230 crore saplings 2015-23. 2) **Hyderabad Tank Bund cleanups**. 3) **Necklace Road Sunday cycling**. 4) **Hyderabad Pearl Mile** car-free Sunday. ప్రతి తెలుగు బిడ్డ గుర్తుంచుకోవాలి: **Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot — మీ home; మీ duty. ప్రతి చిన్న చర్య — చెట్టు plant, plastic refuse, AC reduce — Earth saves. మీ generation's sacred mission.**