Earth is My Home
Drew and I spent the weekend in Yellowstone. We saw waterfalls, roaring geysers, hot springs, moose, bison, deer, fawns, fowls, chipmunks, geese, lizards, insects, rivers, mud volcanoes, wolves, bear cubs, jagged cliffs, and green hills. We swam in the river below cascading falls and ate among a herd of grazing bison. We live on a special planet.
Our species shares this planet not only with each other but all other terran creatures who live here. It takes a specific set of planetary features to allow diverse flourishing. Human existence depends on Earth and the vast network of interconnected lifeforms that we are irrevocably linked with.
When people talk about leaving Earth to live on Mars or colonize other planets, I sometimes feel sad. The sadness is not because space exploration isn’t an admirable endeavor. It is. If we can design the conditions for plants and animals to live and thrive on Mars, it will likely help us find ways of sustaining life on this planet. The sadness is because I love my home, and I don’t want to leave it to colonize others. Earth’s beauty and generosity are beyond compare, but we’ve been abusive. We took and took in an unbridled conquest of profit and capital gain. I don’t want to terraform other planets if it means we’ve destroyed this one.
We are explorers and we should continue to explore the limits and boundaries beyond our front door. However, if we aren’t careful, explorers can turn into colonizers consuming one planet after another without regard to the consequences of our overindulgence. I would hope history has taught us the difference between the spirit of exploration and the spirit of colonization. Explorers enter new spaces with a sense of humility, wonder, and reverence for the unknown. Colonizers enter a new space with a sense of entitlement to take control over existing inhabitants through imperialism.
May we continue to explore our world and others as we wander among the stars, but always in the spirit of humility and devotion for the planet that gave us life.
