The Great Red Comet

Issue # 31: Volume 4  (revised sequence)

Editorial

We Must Find Will, Way To Help Earth

Clear sounds of happy children, accompanied by lower decibels from excited adults; all having a good time under a blue sky on April 16, 2006, in our Yucca Valley.

The annual Earth Day celebration, that's what it was!

And what is there more to talk about?

Just the 36th Earth Day; so?

We are living at a fast pace (and I mean not only our traffic), and the 16th of April is already behind us and vaguely remembered, if at all.

The Day of Mother Earth, using the word “mother” most endearingly as in: motherly love, mother tongue, a mother lode, mother nature and, for good measure, mother-in-law.

The purpose of having Earth Day is not only enjoying a preferably outdoor day but also time to think, talk or write about past events.

We do have many special national holidays, such as the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving Day, just to name a few, and those special occasions might include looking back.

The Fourth of July brings back history in its fascinating form; Thanksgiving is up to every individual hat to be thankful for. What about Earth Day?

We have pretty well figured out that for us humans there is only one earth; therefore it would make sense to create an environment as comfortable as possible. And we try to do exactly that, but only on relatively short range. The major part of our time span is focused on necessities and needs for today and tomorrow.

Extending it to months and even years ahead is reserved for topics like our health, job, housing.

Beyond that we are landing in grey matter.

Of course we are aware of pollution, global warming and its consequences such as the melting of polar and glacial ice, rising sea and lakes levels, climate changes and many more.

Meanwhile we continue doing irreversible harm to nature and do not adhere to its most basic requirements. An attitude of “after us, the deluge” with all its miserable and devastating results.

Nothing new under the sun; there are so many doomsday predictions during times past that they have lost their significance.

More than hundred years ago a poet lamented:

“Oh were all the people wise

and did thereby well,

the earth would be a paradise

and now it is a hell.”

But so what: We are still alive and kicking!

All those problems, and the sad thing is that as a single person one cannot do much about it.

Let's realize that we are only pottering about on the surface of Mother Earth, a globe with a center of intense hot magma existing of molten rock. Mother Earth tolerates our poking her crust and fouling the atmosphere only so long: warning signs abound.

Worse than “sad” is the fact that our today's leaders have pooh-pooh'd the warning signs until lately when they could no longer be denied. And even now there is only half-heartedly vague support to really do something about it.

The absolute requisite for realistic action is still painfully and unjustifiably lacking.

We don't need to be told that drivers will face a tough summer; we are well aware of it, living on the same planet, thank you.

Our world needs strong leaders with long-term foresight and our country should play a leading but not overbearing role in tackling the process of executing solutions.

A determined environmentally inclined leader can bring a squabbling Congress to its senses, thereby avoiding a warning as old as 2,000 years ago, but still valid: “Senata deliberante, Hannibal ante portas!”

Do we really need warnings like the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, the threat of a Hannibal, the famous strategist and supreme commander from Carthage who accomplished the astounding feat of crossing the Alps with his army of footfolk and elephants and invading the mighty Roman Empire, or do we need an overwhelming catastrophic natural disaster to bering us into action?

The answer should be a thrice No! Please!

Our reaction on Pearl Harbor did set an awe inspiring machinery in action, the like of it the world hadn't witnessed ever before.

It was accomplished by determined forward looking leaders who mobilized an inspired entire population, without which there cannot be success.

Since all our present problems are of a global nature, religious issues should be kept on personal decisions, not to be impressed upon other human beings.

There is one major goal: save our earth and thereby mankind.

We know very well what has to be done and we have the know-how and tools to do it.

When there is a will, there is a way.

Skywatch wishes to thank Jay Bern for his candid and honest assessment of the future of Planet Earth, and his plea to mankind. It is never too late to change our habits, but it may be too late to change mankind's fate. Time will determine if our fears about the future of Earth become a reality in the course of our life span.