Our Fragile Planet

This fragile planet Earth has been rolling around this middle-aged star called the Sun for 4.5 billion years. That's a long time from a human perspective with two noteworthy exceptions being geologists and astronomer. Both of these are both comfortable with ages in scientific notation. Both  consider the Earth a tempestuous adolescent. For the rest of humanity, a few consecutive TV commercials are  hell one of tax on our attention span.



While still learning to be a baby planet, the Earth was slammed by asteroids the size of McDonald's restaurants, printing presses, microwaves, Mercedes, and a few the size of small nation-states. Specifically, Belgium in particular. This period of asteroid assault is called "the Heavy Bombardment Period." Adding insult to injury, our little green planet was regularly bled by hundreds and thousands of volcanoes. It was smothered in acrid gas and drowned in acid baths. Our fragile blue dot was battered by 200 meter tsunamis and churned by whiplash tides. It fractured beneath a plague of bacteria which inhaled cyanide and returned corrosion. This planet became a living hell which gave rise to a blanket of algae and other squishy things that crept around the oceans primordial. Some of Earth's first passengers were stranger than some of the people I know… almost. You know who you are. 


The Earth is long-suffering.

 
Earth was but a toddler when she was sideswiped by an uninsured planet with the mass and aggressive attitude of Mars, called Theia. The Earth wasn't a total loss. As a matter of fact, this collision is often acknowledged in knowledgeable circles as a blessing. During the impact the Earth lost a divot of rocky mantle larger than our moon. Oddly enough, some of this material became our Moon. At least that's one of the more reasonable theories of how the Moon came to be. Another theory includes a sky god and mother Earth unchaperoned on Prom night. No matter how our Moon came to be, without our gravity locked satellite life on Earth could not exist. That's my theory. You can use it too. Still, after all the abuse, our little island in the Cosmos remained partnered with our local star. 

The Earth is indomitable and, aside from a single indiscretion with a sky god, primarily monogamous.

As for us, we're not so indomitable, but we can be abusive. We subjected the Earth to nuclear bombs dropped on and detonated under her skin. We blasted her ozone sunscreen with propellants because humans perspire more than we think we should. We've burrowed holes in her 2.5 miles (4 km) deep to remove her mineral-rich innards. In recent years, we've taken to pelting her with a nice assortment of our space junk. We've polluted her with plastic, oil spills, depleted uranium, nerve agents, nuclear waste, incinerator dust, landfill leachate, designer biological agents only meant to kill other humans, the Kardashians, infomercials, drinking straws, tampon applicators, and countless gigantic piles of everything else we didn't want around us. We've piled all this crap on roadsides, national parks, and once in a while neatly layered in landfills with a geomembrane permeability of 10^-7. No matter what the method of disposal, the disposer calls the shit disposed of gone. In the eyes of our fragile planet, it's still here. 

The Earth is forbearing.

 

 I'm certain we'll find new, exciting, more sustainable ways to piss off our home world in the eons to come. That's what separates us from the rest of the Animal Kingdom: Elephants still only knock down trees, termites still only devour them, and the Kardashians still just suck, but we human beings are accidentally creative and unwittingly innovative in our destructive ways. 

Our Mother Earth is a classic Renaissance woman who in spite of our best efforts is more beautiful today than she was in her youth.


She's like a wise old cab driver, she's seen everyone and everything come and go with the exception of her current passengers. She will see us go in due time, as well. That's inevitable for there is a time and a season for everything and everyone.
 

Our tiny blue raft in the cosmos is a tough old broad who we should respect and treat with kindness, but the last thing she needs is for us to save her.

She even tolerates our hubristic bullshit about "Saving the Planet" when it's really us who needs saving. Let's not lose sight of who the weaker partner is in this relationship. She's tolerant. She is very tolerant.