Dear Homo sapiens,
I am Mother Earth. I write to you with a heavy heart. For years I have been enduring your careless selfishness and reckless insensitivity, but now I can no longer watch you destroy the home that is keeping you and fellow Earthlings alive. I have witnessed five major extinction events, caused by either geophysical fluctuations or asteroid collision. The sixth impending apocalypse is one I have never seen before. It now threatens Earth and this time I can speak with its cause—you.
Firstly, I would like to commend you for your technological advancements over the few millennia of your existence. I have to say, you have demonstrated the miracle of civilisation in such a short period of time, from walking to bullock carts, to motorized vehicles, to airplanes, and now rockets that explore other fellow friends of mine in The Solar System, like Mars and Venus. However, you are developing at the expense of my well-being. All the species that I have kept, protected and nurtured, as well as I, are hurting. I want to provide and sustain all the living things that occupy my womb, but it is becoming increasingly unachievable. Exhausted, I struggle to contain my forces of destruction, while you take little action to stop climate change.
Your discovery of subterranean hydrocarbon deposits initiated your chronic hydrocarbon addiction. The pace of fossil fuel combustion was so rapid that it made me feverish. Unfortunately, you continue burning fossil fuels at an irrepressible rate despite knowing that this could jeopardize your survival. In the last 40 years, you have used more fossil fuels than your entire existence.
It is extremely intolerable to see you kill other living beings for your selfish desires. You cut down trees for urbanisation. You hunt crocodiles and elephants for their skin and tusks to make handbags and ornaments. Cutting trees results in more greenhouse gases causing more climate change, and even natural disasters. Killing animals disturbs food chains and reduces pollination rates, leading to less trees taking in carbon dioxide in photosynthesis. Animals are not the ones writing history books, but if they were, you would be depicted as rampant genocidal maniacs that thrive on suffering.
Your factories severely distress the air and the ocean. They spew out your tainted offerings of industrial waste into the skies, turning it from a clear blue carpet into a gravel-gray sewer. This not only causes global warming, but also smog, affecting people living in your individual cities. Outlet pipes discard waste into the oceans, harming sea creatures.
My heart breaks when I see forest fires raging, deforestation increasing, species going extinct, holes in my ozone blanket ever enlarging and glaciers breaking. Climate action needs to start now among everyone from your species, by not just policy makers, scientists and ecopreneurs.
Solutions to climate changes could come from a kaleidoscope of ways. One such solution is the use of renewable energy. For example, wind turbines utilize wind energy to rotate and generate electricity. Hydroelectric water turbines are turned by water to produce electricity. The same goes with solar panels with sunlight and piezoelectric flooring with people walking on it. Another possible method is reducing reliance on fertilisers and pesticides, as they mostly leak into and pollute the oceans, poisoning marine life. Cutting down on food waste also saves the greenhouse gases created in the making of it. Your own data shows that 1/3 of all food made was wasted. Last but not least, reforestation is one of the best ways to quickly reverse climate change. Trees not only take in carbon dioxide and give out oxygen during photosynthesis, but also provide habitats for the animals in the ecosystem.
There is something in you that sets you apart from animals, and that, is your intelligence and wisdom. Use this power wisely, my children. Help save the oceans, the greatest miracle that happened on me. Help take action to make the oceans bluer, the climate better, the future brighter. If not you, then who? If not now, then when? If you are not taking action for yourselves, who will be? If you are for yourselves alone, who are you? The change starts with something hidden in plain sight. It is you, whomever you are, politicians, businesspersons, reporters, or just normal citizens. I believe in you, my children, as much as I believe in miracles.
Yours lovingly,
Mother Earth