“THE TINY BLUE MARBLE”

If my calculations are correct, today would have been a holiday known as Earth Day back on the planet of our origin. In light of this occasion, I’d like to draw your attention to one of our museum’s lesser known, but highly treasured, exhibits – a diary excerpt from a young teacher dated to the late twenty-first century.

Today my class took a field trip to the woods on the outskirts of town, where we planted trees in honor of the day we celebrate this tiny blue marble we all call home. The children enjoyed being outside – luckily, the pollution levels were low, so the kids with asthma didn’t need their breathers.

I don’t know if they truly understood the message of Earth Day, but it’s important to start trying to reach them when they’re young. Despite climbing CO2 emissions, and rising temperatures, and micro-plastics contaminating our oceans, they need to know that there is still hope for humanity’s future. Seeing the pure joy on their faces as they dug in the fresh dirt and planted their tiny saplings gave me hope, too.

It's not too late. We can still change things for the better. We can still save Earth. I truly believe that. I have to… what other option is there? Abandon this planet that gave birth to us? Hurl ourselves out into the cold darkness of space, and pray we find something half as precious as what we already have? I can’t even imagine the misery and suffering such a future might entail. Hopefully, we never have to find out.

The ultimate fate of the author is unknown; even if she lived to see the era of the ark fleets, she would have been too old to be selected for the journey. But her simple words echo powerfully across the millennia. Our ancestors didn’t appreciate what they had until it was too late. Earth was lost; our home forever destroyed by our own hubris, avarice, and apathy.

Those of us who study history know it often repeats itself. Is our own home of Lidon doomed to head down the same path as Earth? Are we blind to the lessons of the past? If you look closely, there are already signs of potential trouble. Will we heed the warning before it’s too late, or will we, too, lose this world we have been blessed with?