Happy Earth Day; the International Biological Program

Today is Earth Day, first celebrated in 1970, when I was an undergraduate. One might draw a line from the IGY, the most ambitious attempt ever to study the Earth as a planet, to Earth Day a dozen years later. The nationwide events surrounding the first Earth Day were spurred by the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969 and the growing concern about the vulnerability of Earth's natural systems to human impact.

The American Philatelic Society has a nice web page for today, on Earth Day Stamps. I'll have to double check if that is changed daily or regularly, in which case I will add it to my blog list in the sidebar. Earth Day stamps would be a nice collecting topic, surely one that has been done. I think I own one such stamp somewhere, but I can't find it. Searching on the colnect web site yields 155 Earth Day stamps.

In writing my last post about biological studies during the IGY, I came across a nicely complementary article on the International Biological Program (IBP):"Big science and big data in biology: from the International Geophysical Year through the International Biological Program to the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network, 1957–Present"; Elena Aronova, Karen S. Baker and Naomi Oreskes; Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences , Vol. 40, No. 2, Spring 2010), pp. 183-224; available here if you have access to JSTOR. 

This very well written (so I will use direct quotes below) article was quite interesting in its discussion of "big science," the historical relationship between the IGY and the IBP, and the similarities and differences between these two programs. It states that 

"the Big Science of the IGY was distinguished by its emphasis on and the visibility of Big Data—a synoptic collection of observational data on a global geographic scale." 

It goes on to say that the 

"International Biological Program (IBP, 1964–1974), conceived shortly after the end of IGY, intended to emulate it by setting up a worldwide research initiative to accumulate a vast array of datasets on different living phenomena on a global scale, deploying standardized methods and interdisciplinary collaborations. The IBP is often referred to as one of the first realized Big Science projects in biology, and is often cited anecdotally as a biological version of the IGY."

As the Bulletin article covered in my last post also suggested, Aronova et al. state that 

"in contrast to the centralized worldwide coordination of the geophysical research initiatives during the IGY, the biological activities were without exception the result of individual initiative, with support coming from diverse sources." ... The "biological programs launched under the auspices of the IGY became the first testing ground for the planning of the IBP." 

The IBP came to focus on ecological studies whereby 

"the properties of the Earth were regarded as determined not only by the chemical and physical properties of the Earth but also by biological activities, which in turn were controlled, at least partially, by the physical properties of the environment." 

I like that systemic approach, including the feedback loops.

The IBP seems to have been less successful than the IGY. Not all biologists bought into the emphasis on ecology, a science which seemed more applied and "political" than other areas of biology. Programs were fragmented and idiosyncratic. Data were not centrally archived and shared as had happened for the IGY with the World Data Centers. And the hopes to construct synthetic models based on those data were unsuccessful. 

I was surprised to find that, in contrast to the IGY, only one stamp was issued for the International Biological Program. Maybe that is commensurate with the perceived lack of its success. 

I've just ordered a cover franked with that stamp:

International Biological Program first day cover with a block of Canada stamp 507 (1970)

The stamp shows a microscopic view of the inside of a leaf, not a great design in my opinion. The cachet on this cover showing the sun, soil, oceans, plants, land-based animals, and fish suggests the multifaceted nature of the Earth's biosphere, reminiscent of the interrelated Earth systems covered during the IGY. All these parts, in quasi-equilibrium, that people's actions have often thrown out of kilter. Let's be kind to Mother Earth.