The finite Earth…

What have we done to this planet?

This column is strictly my opinion. It’s a bit late for Earth Day, but I noticed there wasn’t much recognition of the event this year. And honestly, we need it more than ever.

In any case, I am prompted to write this blog after reading “A Life on Our Planet,” by David Attenborough. His name needs little introduction, but just in case, he is the renowned British biologist and broadcaster of natural history. We grew up with him on PBS, and I don’t want to get political, but really, defund PBS? (A topic for another day.)

I know you can find thousands of articles about climate change and countless shows about what is happening to our planet, but this book, which was easy reading, made me stop and think about our role as humans on this planet. (Published in 2020, it was also a Netflix series about the “evolutionary history of life on Earth,” which I haven’t seen yet.)

Attenborough breaks the book into three parts, the first is “My Witness Statement.” (He was 94 when he wrote it. ) Here he moves through the decades beginning in 1937, and shows us how our presence here has so drastically changed the planet in a very short time. We have gone from a mainly natural world to a highly industrialized one. It obviously has had effects, and we are experiencing them now.

The weather is unpredictable, the oceans are polluted with plastics, our food has plastic particles in it, the air quality is often unhealthy (just check the latest weather on your phone for the daily air quality), satellites are a threat to the ozone layer. This is the norm now.

It is sad and frightening that we have taken such poor care of this planet.

How can this be happening ? It’s us. We are responsible for what is being called the sixth mass extinction, which we are in now, a period leading to the unsustainability of life on Earth. (Unlike the other 5 mass extinctions that include the end of the dinosaurs, the responsibility for this one is largely on us, not natural causes.) Info at World Wildlife Fund. For a fast and fascinating video explaining the extinctions, go to the American Museum of Natural History.

But there is hope for positive change, and Attenborough ties the planet’s past, present and future together in ways that show us a path toward a healthy and sustainable planet in part three, “A Vision for the Future.”

Essentially, we have to work with nature than against it. He tells us how we must “rewild the world.” We need to restore biodiversity and rebalance the planet to reverse the damage.

This blog is not a summation of the book; it is my takeaway. And I am not a scientist so I will not attempt to explain why biodiversity is so important. Attenborough does that. But he made me see that everything is connected.

My POV: Think about this. Every single thing in your house, your neighborhood, the mall, every city and every country, it is all a gift from Earth. The wood and concrete in your house, the steel in your car, all the food in the refrigerator. Just look around.

Even those objects that are plastic and/or synthetic, everything comes from the earth. We are taking minerals, oil, soil, water, etc., from the ground, but these resources are all finite.

All these things are connected to each other and us. Humans take, but what do we give back? Garbage? Pollution? Junkyards? Landfills of garbage? Recyclables that are transported elsewhere only to be burned? We have become a society that disposes instead of fixing (this built-in obsolescence especially in electronics is awful). Do we really need all this stuff we buy?

I don’t mean to simplify a situation that is staggeringly complicated. Yet our over-consumption is tilting the balance that the earth needs to continue supporting us.

From the author, two ways an individual can impact the outcome: Reduce our consumption of meat and fossil fuel.

We are constantly consuming. Food, books, computers, light bulbs, your countertop, your clothes, sheets, towels, skin care, hair care, on and on. . . it all comes from the earth. Vegetable, animal, mineral. Everything, in one way or the other, starts there. And we are poor caretakers.

This is hardly my typical blog, but this book put my head in a different space, especially on a rainy weekend. So I’m rambling a bit…

Is there hope? Can we change the world? Attenborough thinks so. Here’s a video from WWF , “How to Save Our Planet.” His voice is captivating.