Having a view of our planet that very few get to see left Garan believing that we’re too caught up in the wrong things – saying in 2022 that he was ‘hit with the sobering realization’ that the ‘paper-thin’ biosphere around the planet is responsible for keeping everything alive.
“I saw an iridescent biosphere teeming with life,” he told Big Think. “I didn’t see the economy.”
“But since our human-made systems treat everything, including the very life-support systems of our planet, as the wholly owned subsidiary of the global economy, it’s obvious from the vantage point of space that we’re living a lie.”
He went on to say that we need to shift our focus from ‘economy, society, planet’ to ‘planet, society, economy’ as that’s the only way to continue our ‘evolutionary process.’
NASA astronaut Ronald Garan in supercarblondie.com, Feb 12, 2026 at 8:25 PM (UTC+4)