Environment Essay: It's Time to Save the Planet

Regret. Think back to your childhood. Do you remember those infamous words "No playing ball in the house," and do you remember that feeling of terror as you tried to reconstruct your mother's favorite porcelain figurine? Its poor mutilated body shattered beyond recognition. Immediately your mind thought, "If I fix it before she finds out, it will be O.K. I just have to sneak the glue from the kitchen," but it was too late. She had heard the noise and came to see what had happened.

Regret. Now onto those reckless teenage years. Do the words, "The tree jumped right out in front of me" sound familiar? How did you react when you climbed from the car to see the fender and grill intertwined into a mass of metal? And oh, that nice shiny paint scarred with streaks of metal. Did your heart start to pound and your palms sweat as you thought of your parents reaction?

Regret. As an adult you didn't expect that old recliner that went to the dump last week to mean that much? You didn't think you would miss its worn, comfy cushions. How could you have known? And now there was no way to get it back.

The earth, unfortunately, isn't a figurine or a car or a recliner. Man did not create nature, yet we feel we have the right to use it in whatever manner we see fit. And like those items, one day we may regret what we have done. We will look for a way to fix the Earth, a way to make it better, and one will not exist. We cannot glue the ozone layer back together. We cannot paint over the missing trees of the rain forest. We cannot buy a new species of animals. Our actions today have long term consequences. Are we ready to deal with them?

"Unchopping a Tree" by W. S. Merwin is a fictional essay that explores in detail how a chopped tree can be reconstructed by man. Its futuristic views challenge the mind like a hopeful dream of redemption. Merwin describes how the pieces of the tree, even the splinters, must be gathered and pieced together like a puzzle.