I’m ashamed of myself.

Today is Earth Day and I damn near forgot about it.

The shame comes because every day ought to be Earth Day. Think of it. Earth is the only planet we have that suitable for human life … that we know of at this moment.

And yet we do such a terrible job of caring for it.

We wipe out forests to make room for human inhabitants.

We spew toxic gases into the air.

We dump garbage into the ocean without thinking of what it does to the wildlife that inhabits it.

We pour chemicals into the ground, poisoning animals that share this planet with us.

We encroach on wildlife habitat and react badly when one or more of those animals strikes back without understanding the consequences of that action.

I could keep going. I’ll stop there.

It gives me hope to drive along our countryside to see wind turbines turning. They are producing energy that helps us conserve the fossil fuels that we’ve already depleted. I also draw hope from the sight of hybrid automobiles that burn much less fuel than their predecessors.

I’m not going to issue condemnations with this brief post.

Instead, I choose to lament that Earth Day doesn’t reap the kind of international attention that we bestow on so many other such events.

Every day ought to be Earth Day.

Maybe one day when all of us here today have left this world, there’ll be an escape for those who come along after us if they don’t do a better job of caring for this world than others have done so far.

For now and for the foreseeable future, though, Planet Earth is all we have.

Let’s take care of it.