"The Earth - Big picture, the beautiful blue marble. Close-up, garbage and pollution.
Humanity - Big picture, noble and heroic. Close-up flawed to say the least
USA - Big picture, freedom, opportunity, tolerance. Close-up - somewhat flawed.
Islam - Big picture, cruel, intolerant, ignorant. Close-up - gets a bad rap based on ? percentage of their people."

I think your big picture and close-up has a bias which reflects a preference for things to be far away. My stab at it:
The Earth- big picture: a dim bluish white world. Close-up, and world filled in lifeforms, with microbial life dominating, and ever changing and varying.
Humanity- Big picture: hideous, cowardly, stupid, mean, extremely violent, and ultimately, probably harmless. Close-up: A wonder- beyond understanding.

USA- big picture: A seeming impossibility, which continues improbablity, and repetitively seems to do the impossible which lead to doing more outrageously impossible and unlikely things- mostly with no real planning or reason. Close-up: Upon entering the land, people seem to change for no apparent reason other that what they claim to describe as Freedom. Teeming with differences, the biggest complain seems to be that there is not enough differences.

Islam- Big picture: The youngest of the great religions, it's difference with other religions, is it's emphasis on politics, empire building, and war.
Close up: Mostly tribal and competitive in terms of tribal- probably one best representation of what a human has been and may continue to be if the anomaly known as the West fades. Friendly, honorable, violent, decent, and wonderful storytellers on individual level- but in terms large general population behavior see above description of Humanity- Big picture.