ANOTHER OPEN LETTER TO MANKIND FROM PLANET EARTH – BY TOM CURLEY

Hi Mankind. This is Earth again. Some of you call me Earth, some call me Terra, some call me Gaia.  Call me what you want. Just don’t call me late for dinner.  (I still don’t really get that joke, but I got a whole bunch of ‘likes’ when I said it in the last letter I wrote you).

I last wrote you on Earth Day in 2019.  I was touched at how many of you felt you were destroying my environment and maybe you should stop doing that. I pointed out that I’ll be fine. I’ve been around for a few billion years. My environment changes all the time. It’s you guys who should be worried.

I’m writing this time because I noticed that you are all getting sick. Really sick. All over me. Everywhere. This isn’t surprising. It happens more often than you think. You just don’t notice it because you guys have really short life spans and even shorter attention spans. I know a lot of you write stuff down when things happen. You call it “history.”

I’ve also noticed most of you don’t read history. If you do, you can’t remember it.

For my first few billion years, I was pretty much a big ball of hot rocks and volcanos. Then something happened and it rained for a long time, even by my standards.

Then the weirdest thing happened. Life appeared. It was really cool. I enjoyed watching it grow and develop.  Much more interesting than watching a volcano erupt. I mean, it’s still cool, but it does get a little boring after the first few billion years.

I noticed after a while that all the different types of plants and animals developed a system to make an environment that made it easier for them to survive. I think you folks call it “Ecology.” It made sure that if one species grew too much or was eating more than they should, something would slow them down.

For instance, if there were too many plants and trees, deer and other animals would eat plants and trees. If there were too many deer, wolves would eat more of them. If there were too many wolves, they would die out because they ran out of deer to eat. You get the idea.

Then you guys came along. At first, you pretty much fit in with all the other life on my surface. I noticed, as time went on, you started to figure out how to get around all the checks and balances that would keep your population in check. And in balance.

You figured out how to live in any of my climates. My deserts, my mountains, my lakes, my forests. Suddenly, you were everywhere. After a while, there were no normal ways to keep your population in check. Or in balance. Sure, you could get eaten by lion, or a tiger, or a bear (someone told me if I say ‘Oh My” right now I’d get a big laugh. Don’t get the reference, but what the hell, why not. Click “like” or “subscribe” below). But there’s not enough of them to make any real difference.

There are only two things I’ve seen that tends to weed you out.  First, there’s disease. Epidemics. Pandemics. It works pretty well. You had one a while back. I think you called it the “The Black Death.” Oh, and don’t forget the 1918 flu. That was even bigger than “The Black Death.” It did a really good job. 50 million deaths on that one.

Global disease isn’t working long term. Not as well as it used to work. You’re figuring out ways to get around it.

But what I find fascinating is that you guys are trying to help out by finding ways to kill yourselves off!  For instance. You invented war. Do you know you are the only species to do that on a global level?  Damned nice of you to try to help out the ecology. But it hasn’t really worked well in the long run.

However, you still have a very powerful tool to help you all “cull the herd,” as you like to say. That tool is stupidity. It’s been around since you all showed up. Recently, I’ve noticed the number of stupid people seems to be growing exponentially. (I’m not totally sure what that word means, but I see it a lot on the news.)

Even though you’ve figured out ways to stop this current virus, stupidity is fighting back. It could be winning. I’ve seen the stupidest among you having protests, gathering together in large crowds and hugging and kissing each other. They claim this virus is a hoax. They don’t believe it’s real. The great thing about a virus is that it couldn’t care less if you believe it’s real. It just wants you to hug and kiss and get together in big crowds.

Now, there is a possibility that stupidity might stop being as effective as it currently is. In theory, humans could reach “Peak Stupidity” after which the stupidity curve would flatten out. Then the virus would be less effective at “culling the herd.”

I’m not worried about that. I don’t think there is a peak. You can’t cure stupidity.

I think it was one of your unusually smart humans, Einstein, Steinberg, something like that. He wrote, “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity. And I’m not sure about the former.”

So, there you have it mankind. I must admit, I really don’t want you all to disappear.  I’ve watched millions of species come and go. I’ve liked most of them. I’ve grown really fond of you guys. I mean, you invented beer! And Netflix! I’ve really gotten into Netflix. I can’t stop watching Tiger King. Talk about stupid!

Sincerely yours,

The Earth