Plant a tree today: small step for you, giant leap for the future of mankind.
In July we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Apollo landing on the moon in “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” I enjoy the human spirit of space exploration, but these days there is more urgency for us to keep both feet on Earth. We need to explore inner space for solutions and take steps towards restoration and repair as we meet the consequences of climate change.
It may seem like the blue sky above us is limitless, but relative to Earth our atmosphere is a thin film of just about the same thickness as the skin of an apple. Deforestation, urbanization, industrialization of agriculture and burning of fossil fuels emit greenhouse gases that trap heat and contribute to global warming. Human activities since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution have raised the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) from 280 ppm to 411.77 ppm in July 2019 (https://www.co2.earth/).
Earth worked up a major sweat this summer. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association reported that June 2019 was the hottest ever recorded, with Antarctic sea ice coverage shrinking to record lows. Meteorologists now confirm that July 2019 beat June as the hottest month on record. This is an alarming trend that needs to be taken seriously.
Modern man has only been on the stage of life for less than 1/100th of 1 percent of Earth’s timeline. In this short time, we’ve altered the composition of the atmosphere, as well as changed the shape and content at land and sea. We remove mountain tops in search of coal, we frack and drill and dig for fuel. We’ve cleared more than half of our world’s tree coverage and polluted most rivers. It doesn’t take a genius to realize this way of living isn’t sustainable.
The WWF Living Planet report released in 2014 states that between 1970 and 2010, the planet lost 52 percent of it’s biodiversity. In the same period the human population more than doubled. We’re now loosing species 1,000 times faster than ever before, animals we never even knew.
Cradled by cement walls, fed by the shelves at the supermarket, we are losing vital information in the white noise of technology and modernday comforts.
The World Wide Web with increasingly powerful network connectivity has in our cultural consciousness replaced the importance of life-giving networks. If we’d like to remain on Earth as a species, we need to observe the principles of healthy ecosystems. Aerobic respiration very simply depends on the availability of oxygen created by trees and ocean organism. Technology cannot feed us the air we need to breathe. We need to dig deep into our core values and restore the real connections with the life-giving Wood Wide Web. We are not on top of, but simply a thin thread in the interdependent web of life. We need to re-examine every step we take, if we’d like to take another giant leap in the future. Otherwise, we may sadly end up as the species that self-destroyed in short time, despite making it to the moon.
We’ve been living in a disconnected state, driven by consumption, greed, celebrating excesses while exploiting and depleting natural resources. We are called to reconsider all of our habits and reframe our relationship to Earth and each other.
We’re living on a blue-green dot in space, perfect distance from the sun. With almost 8 billion mouths to feed, we need to return to more sustainable methods. We need to harness energy that is naturally replenished, collected from renewable resources, such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, waves and geothermal heat.
The mind may be limitless, but our Earth body is limited by available resources. The party is over, it is time to clean up.
A light in the dark, youth is leading the way of reason, with Swedish activist Greta Thunberg declaring climate CRISIS, rather than mildly stating we’re experiencing climate change. The American Sunrise movement holds the torch of truth in shedding light on what matters.
We must reframe the way we relate to Earth and each other. We need to clean up our act on Earth — today — so that future generations can thrive to extend their space travels beyond our wildest imagination.
It is encouraging to witness how candidates in the Democratic primary debates have stressed environmental and social justice as their hot topics.
As the one species driving significant and measurable change on Earth, the good news is we can actively shape it for the better.
Reforestation provides natural “carbon sinks” and is our best bet when it comes to mitigating the consequences of climate change.
Plant a tree today.
“..the care of the earth is our most ancient and most worthy and, after all, our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it, and to foster its renewal, is our only legitimate hope.”
Wendell Berry
