“When the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten and the last stream poisoned, will you realize that you cannot eat money.” -Cree Native American Proverb

Dear America (and its guilty citizens), 

“When the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten and the last stream poisoned, will you realize that you cannot eat money.” 

Are they blind? I sometimes believe that they are looking their end in the face, and deciding  it is just another nasty joke. And then they skip to another channel on their 60 inch flat screen. 

I am ignored. As I die, and sigh in disappointment and pain, they watch. Waiting, seeing how far I can go until they are forced to act faster.

If I stop talking, will they finally listen?

Humans are a beautifully radiant lie. They lie to others and perversely insist on lying to themselves. My waters are polluted. My air is getting tired: grayer and scarcer. My summers are more humid, my winters are too short. My animals are dying. My saddened oceans are rising, my angry fires are spreading. My icecaps are sobbing, my arctic creatures reduced to hungry, painful frames of bones.

What must I do? 

How long until they look me in the face and say “I believe you. What must I do?” 

“It’ll start getting cooler,” they hear. And some of them believe it. I assure you that they will be the first to fall victim to my toll on their protected world.

The cowards turn away, ignoring.

The rest march for an end of the desperation and shake fists at the lack of responsibility shown by their privileged citizens. 

Why must they choose between their plastic, superficial, competitive lives and a possible, grateful, healthy life.?

I see advertisements and social media videos advertising to teenagers and young adults on “how to find your dream body” and “how to get a healthy lifestyle in 1 week.” Believe me when I say: there is no healthy life that is reachable to you personally if all you do is drink more water and go to the gym twice a week. The very air I am giving you to breathe is sick and dying. The very food I am growing for you that you eat contains microplastic, and last time I checked, no one loved the idea of consuming one of my popular petroleum based products. The very ground they walk on is saturated with toxic oils and the trash of their wasteful hands; wake up. 

They may not live to see the glory of all the destruction their actions will bring. But their children and all of humanity’s descendants will choke on their mistakes and the poisoned air they gave to them in their last will and testament.

This is not my warning or my lecture. It is not an accusation or a throwing of blame. It is simply a question I have long asked them. I have long waited for them to listen, and I am growing tired.

From the bottom of my soul, 

Yours truly, 

Earth