The hurricane season is upon us but Mother Nature has really been getting her hits in all year long. How soon we forget! Earthquakes in New Zealand, Japan, and of course the east coast of the United States. Tornadoes in Joplin. Drought in Texas. Flooding in the Catskills and Vermont. What is going on here?

If you are living in any of the affected areas you are quick to use the term disaster. And for you it really is. We have had the pine beetle wipe out huge sections of our forest greenery in Colorado. We have had raging wildfires taking out palatial homes and cabins alike. It has not been good.

In our scientific, uber cyber world this seems not only inconvenient but downright scary. But wait. Don’t we have satellites to do something about it ? Don’t we have an app. When I built my house the agent didn’t mention these things on the disclosure forms. There has got to be a way I can sue him, the county or God or something?

In Katrina we didn’t do enough. In Irene we did too much. FEMA screwed up in Louisiana. Ron Paul says we don’t need them at all. The TV and radio got carried away. There was only $5 billion in damage not $8 bill. The stock market soars. No sweat. Only 40 poor souls lost their lives.

Has any one waxed eloquently about the beauty of the forces of nature? I have been at sea in a raging hurricane. Sure you get a little nervous but there is a majesty of a rolling angry wave that is all its own. We didn’t fear the sea. We respected its power.

There is something quite amazing about an earthquake. The epicenter was about 80 miles south of DC. It’s tremors and reverberations were felt in Cleveland, New York and Canada in a matter of seconds. I though of the massive fissures in the earth as our planet pushed here and there, searching for some leg room. Not to destroy but just to relieve pressure. Plate upon plate of rock and magma, heaving and groaning thousands of feet deep in the earth’s bowels and oceans.

We are so quick to equate power with money or guns. Armadas. Flying fortresses. Missiles that can wipe out cities in seconds. We throw accolades at rock stars, movie queens and sporting heroes of all types. The almost farcical spectacle of a Kardashian wedding. We ooh. We aah.

Whenever I would hike in Vail I would come upon this glen or that. I almost imagined I was the first human being to ever set foot on this little piece of earth. The incredible beauty. The deafening silence. Then you began to hear. Birds. Animals. All in unison. Better than any concert I have been to.

We live in the city and the other evening I took my sentry duties on the front porch. There was the faint rustling of the trees on a beautiful summer night. It had rained a little earlier and the smell was sweet. I thought that even in all the turmoil of the world, life wasn’t so bad after all.

I guess in the midst of all the craziness of this thing we call life, I actually revel in the uprisings of Mother Earth. I really do look at our planet as a vibrant organism. A person prone to tantrums. A beast that can be tranquil and hibernate for only so long. Like every other human thing it wants to be appreciated and loved. Not just used and thrown away.

I am not sure we have done a good job. We have really laid waste in so many ways. I am not a tree hugger per se but I have the utmost respect for this wonderful, gift giving hunk of a planet.

I believe God has put it here but let’s not debate theology. All I know is we should be thankful and understand we have to give something back if only by protecting it. Kiss the earth? Why not? She would love it.

As always

Ted The Great

Factoids:

The earth has a width of approximately 8 miles.

The fresh water in the entire world comprises 3% of all waterOf that approx 70% is in glaciers and 30% in groundwater(lakes and rivers)

The earth’s surface is 28% earth,72%water

As a country we put almost 5 1/2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As a planet we put 29.9 metric tons into the atmosphere. No matter what you think about global warming this can’t be good.