Happy Earth Day!

It's been 45 years since  we began celebrating Earth Day.  People had already been celebrating it for 15 years when I first heard about Earth Day (at least gave it my attention). This is going to be a really short post, because I can express how I feel about our planet very succinctly; I like the earth, and I want it to last forever. That's it.

Okay, that's not it.  You see, I don't believe that man can destroy the earth.  Not that man can't be very destructive when he wants to be, or when he deems it necessary.  But the very idea, that people, by virtue of flatulence, or riding in an SUV, or taking a flight, will eventually cause the earth to have a monumental fail, to go dark or wither up and poof, cease to exist, I don't buy it. God created this planet, not man, and until He decides He's sick of it...the earth ain't going nowhere, and will continue
to give us its bounty.  Earth will continue to replenish itself.  Of course God wants us to be good stewards of His earth, but not slaves to it, and certainly not worrshippers of it.

Remember the oil spill in Louisiana a few years back?  We were told it would be generations before the Gulf would be even close to normalcy.  There were reports about the demise of the Gulf's fishing industry, the destruction of wildlife and plant life...and the promise of more destruction.

Once BP was able to stop the oil leak, a gigantic oil plume--nasty stuff--remained. Crews worked futilely, attempting to clean up the mess.  But the job was too massive.  It was afterall, over 140,000,000 gallons of crude. Even the actor Kevin Costner offered to help out.  He had some sort of oil-water separating machine. Costner's machine wasn't what they hoped for (BP later paid Costner $16 million for each rig).

While all of that was going on, there was something else going on that we couldn't see.
What we couldn't see were microscopic oil-eating bacteria.  Our oil disaster was nothing short of a Mardi Gras for the bacteria, and they gorged themselves day and night, night and day on black gold, Texas tea.  After a nearly two week feeding frenzy, the microbes had cleaned up the oil plume.  It was completely gone!

Are there still environmental issues in the Gulf region? Yes. But efforts by conservationists, along with the earth's God given ability to replenish itself, is why I'm very optimistic about not only the Gulf region, but our planet's future.

For the past few years, my celebration of Earth Day has included watching this video of some people who don't share my optimism for planet earth. Oh come on, its a celebration. We're supposed to laugh, right?