Dear Earth … well, this is your day. We human inhabitants of the only planet we can call home celebrate you and presumably give thanks for being alive and well enough to wish you good health.
Agreed, your health ain’t great. We human beings are doing our best (or shall I say our worst) to mess you up. Your climate is changing. Our planet is getting hotter every year. I keep reading about how glaciers are melting at a quicker rate than expected. Yes, I know what happens to that glacial ice: It turns to water and the sea levels are rising, endangering our seaside communities around the world.
The debate has pretty much ended about whether human beings are responsible for it. We are. We keep wiping out forests and we keep pouring carbon-based pollutants into the air. On behalf of my fellow humans, I apologize for the mistreatment we have laid on you.
I want to boast just a bit, Mother Earth, about what we’re doing in our North Texas community to help you. I live in a community, Princeton, that recycles expendable items. The disposal company gives us bins into which we can toss our recyclable material: plastic, paper, metal. It all goes in there and I am told that it reduces landfill waste by about 40%. That’s not bad.
Mother Earth, I am sure you remember the era in which the U.S. government decided to honor you. It came in 1970, when a Republican served as president. Yes, it was President Nixon who thought enough of you to establish the Environmental Protection Agency. Ah, yes. Those were the days.
Imagine a MAGA Republican today endorsing such a thing. It won’t happen … but that’s another story for another day.
I just want to wish you well, Earth and I want to call on my neighbors and fellow Americans — along with my fellow terrestrial travelers — to honor you every single day we all are able.