Earth Isn't In Trouble

Posted by Shirley Siluk Gregory Sep 25, 2007

You don't have to look far these days to find one news story or another with a title something like, "Planet in Peril" or "Threatened Earth."

But as right on as the facts -- rising carbon dioxide levels, rising seas, melting ice caps -- in these stories are, the headlines kind of misconstrue the problem. And, in doing so, they risk making the problem seem less urgent to some of us humans.

Because the Earth, or the planet, isn't really under threat. It will still be here, in one form or another, 1 million, 100 million, 1 billion years from now. It's life as we know it that's at risk. Yes, polar bears and orangutans and krill and albatrosses ... but humans too. We're far more threatened (and more responsible too, of course) by the changes taking place here on Earth than the planet itself is.

If more of us only realized that, we might do more to solve the Earth's problems -- our problems -- before they get much worse.