Watch out: When Mother Earth isn’t happy, nobody’s happy

Sometimes I think of Earth Day as a faintly sad Mother’s Day, when uncaring children who rarely visit show up with a bedraggled potted plant. For a while after Earth Day, certain sections of our highways might be cleaner, newly planted trees might bud, and the flowers outside town halls might look cheery, but let’s face it — this parent-child relationship has run amok.

We have not only persisted with activities that are causing Earth much distress, we have doubled down on them. Since the first Earth Day in 1970, we have increased CO2 emissions by about 90%.

We could decide to recycle more conscientiously, buy less, begin having “meatless Mondays” and figure that is enough. Hey, Ma, we tried. But maybe the Earth is not a doting, disappointed parent, but a very angry one who can’t wait to get its hands on us.

Why not? Imagine this indignant planet asking, “Why are you burning all this stuff ? Look at the sun, which has more than enough energy for everybody, and the technology you smart alecks have figured out for harvesting it cheaply! Get out the habit of burning things to create energy, or else!”

Designating one day a year to celebrate the Earth is an example of humanity’s lack of humility. Since our species originated only 300,000 years ago — 0.007% of Earth’s 4.5 billion year history — it seems pretty arrogant of us to devote one lone day to paying tribute to our home, especially since our bad habit of burning fossil fuels is destroying the intricate web of life that took those billions of years to create.

There are signs that parental vengeance is already arriving. Have you noticed the record-breaking heat waves, drenching rains, severe floods, years-long droughts, extreme wildfires and widespread flooding?

Since we are already beginning to see what Mother Nature’s “or else” looks like, we’ve got to pay attention and focus on getting fossil fuels out of our energy systems. Yet the latest United Nations study reports that greenhouse

gas emissions have hit new highs. At the rate we are going now, we are going to experience a 5 degree Fahrenheit rise in average global temperature by the end of the century. What could that bring? Melting ice sheets, a desiccated Amazon rainforest, crop failures and widespread flooding.

Given the gravity of this situation, the best way to commemorate Earth Day is to call or write our legislators, urging them to support bills like the Home Energy Affordable

Transition Act, which would provide fair ways to get us all heating and cooking safely with electricity, and requiring lower emissions for cars and electric school buses.

Eating veggies and riding our bikes is good. So is purchasing electric heat pumps, solar panels and electric vehicles. But we need major government action to confront the coming crisis. Put another way: We have limited time left to clean our room before that angry parent gets in the door.

Eating veggies and riding our bikes is good. But we need major government action to confront the coming crisis.