On April 22nd of this year, we celebrated earth
day once more. A day dedicated to this wonderful planet we all live on. For all
of my life, from the day of reasoning on, I have been in awe of it. I find more
beauty in a field of wild weeds and flowers then in anything mankind has ever
created. The creatures we share this planet with, never cease to amaze me with
their resilience, to all we have done to them. Sadly not all of them were able
to survive the onslaught but in some cases we woke up to what we were doing and
helped them. Sadly again, we can’t seem to stop what we are doing to destroy
them and their habitat and so it all might all be a moot point.
Just the fact that 7.1 billion of us exist on this planet
makes for an untenable situation. We all have to eat, drink, breath and give
off waste and at some point we will overwhelm the earths ability to cleanse
itself. At some point we will use up all of the natural resources such as clean
water and clean air and at that point our numbers will decline in what seems to
be a heartless cycle of birth and early death. None of this is intentional;
it’s just a by-product of our existence. The end is inevitable if we continue
the way we are, but it’s not the end unless we want it to be.
The same mankind, who has poisoned the earth, can through
modern technology unpoison it but right now the desire is not there. Something
called greed and money has gotten in the way. I have walked across the
Mississippi river at lake Itasca and saw the clear clean water that gives birth
to this mighty river. I have crossed it also at the other end, where it is for
all practical purposes an open sewer, emptying into the Gulf of Mexico creating
a death zone, or hypoxic area of 6,500 square miles where little can live.
Many places in the U.S. are running out of fresh water.
Aquifers have been pumped dry and in some places seawater is encroaching them,
filling the void, ruining them forever. The earth is literally collapsing over
some of them in places. Rivers are contaminated with chemicals and lead. Even
the oceans are filling with debris. Glaciers that fed streams with fresh water
are receding. In Oklahoma the ground shakes everyday from man made earthquakes
from fracking but the beat goes on.
I have only touched on a few problems for our earth created
by mankind. Believe me there are many more. I found out in the last month that
I have two great grandchildren coming in the next year. Today I wonder what
kind of water they will drink and what kind of air they will breathe. When I
was born, three quarters of a century ago, none of this was a problem. Just
think how insignificant 75 years is, in the millions of years this rock has
been rotating around our star. But that’s all the time it took us to put this
earth on the path to ruination. I want those great grand babies of mine to
still celebrate earth day like I did. To stand and sing, “Oh beautiful, for spacious skies. For amber waves of grain. For purple
mountain majesties across the fruited plain” and be able mean it. Mankind
will never destroy the earth; we will only make it uninhabitable. And then long
after we are gone Mother Nature will slowly repair it-- but by then, it will be
too late for us.
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