The Case Against Saving the Earth
By Mark Szakonyi
Brothers and sisters, I see a reckoning coming. It should be our reckoning, but the Green Insurgence threatens our day. They skimmed the seas saving whales in the 80s, and freed rats and other vermin from cages in the 90s. But in short time they infiltrated the system, so that now Fortune 500 CEOs boast of sustainability and presidential hopefuls unveil plans to fuel the infrastructure with hope and resolve. Even the proles talk of preserving by showering less and not keeping all their TVs on all day. They know not what they endanger.
For the sooner this Earth comes to an end then the sooner we could be saved. If there is something better out there, something purer and wiser, than it will be forced to make itself known. We are the colicky children in the playpen demanding attention. We piss on our blanket by spilling oil and mercury in the rivers and oceans. We tear down the wooden bars of the crib by wrecking the landscape with strip mining and landfills. We pollute the hanging colorful mobile by pumping our carbon dioxide into its direction, causing it to spin erratically.
And some of you in the back row, the unconvinced, are surely thinking of a camping trip you took when you were young. The waterfall was a beautiful end to the peaceful afternoon hike, yes? The sunset even better than a movie? But these were just moments. Illusions of beauty and permanence. A hundred yards from the waterfall, a blue jay dives into a foreign nest to lay its own biological weapon of destruction in the form of an egg. Back at the camp, your mother cooks dinner over the open fire and wishes she could exchange fluids with someone other than your father. The world is broken, but there is no redemption in ourselves or in stories of saviors and grace.
Whenever there is a beach cleanup, we’ll be there to reverse the tide. Whenever there is a solar panel glittering, we’ll be there with a rock and a strong throwing arm. If nothing picks us up from our decrepit cage, we will embrace the silence. For a world for our children is worthless if it is empty as our own.