An Earth as Sick as Our Children

An Earth as Sick as Our Children
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I suppose it would come to this. Having spent the past several years talking about allergies and children's health, it is a lens through which I often view the world.

So as I watched a recent video about climate change, all I could think was, "The Earth is as sick as our children."

With epic heat waves, floods, wild temperature fluctuations, volcanic reactions and scorched and infertile grounds, it seemed to me that our planet is sick.

And just as our children are covered in dry patches, running fevers and launching inflammatory responses to things in their environment, the Earth appears to be having the same allergic reaction.

We have poured fossil fuel over her skin, filled her airways with pollution and poisoned her water with everything from oil to agrichemicals to pharmaceutical drugs. Is it any wonder that her health appears to be failing?

So if the Earth were a child that was this sick, what would this condition be called?

And all I could think was, "climate fever." She is running hot and cold with all kinds of conditions that have the potential to cause tremendous harm.

So with the image of an ill child in mind, maybe it's time that we take a new approach. And rather than "fight global warming" and argue over how sick this child has become, perhaps it's time that we care for our planet as a mother might care for a sick little one.

So what might that look like, you ask?

To begin, rather than the routine dousing of her skin with toxic pesticides and agrichemicals, we might consider reducing her exposure to these chemicals and cultivate an approach to agriculture, like the one recently recommended by the United Nations, that isn't chemically or fossil fuel dependent.

And rather than continue to inject her with IV-like instruments with which to extract the very oil and fossil fuel that is harming her, we could consider building clean energy sources and alternative energy infrastructures to give her the means with which to grow and thrive without the risk of toxicity.

We could call on our collective talents and insights to lend to the healing of her condition.

Consider what it might look like if we were to care for the Earth as if she were a sick child with "climate fever."

Would we not care for her as if her well-being depended on it, in order to prevent a lifetime of illness and disease?

With the growing number of environmental disasters like tornadoes, fires, floods and droughts, we may want to do our part to protect her health rather than risk finding ourselves in a state of continued "dis-ease."

Because in the words of George Eliot, "it is never too late to be what you might have been."

Learn what you can do to help protect the health of our planet from further climate degradation at www.practicallygreen.com.

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