Dear Mother Earth

Dear Mother Earth,

I want to apologize for what we’ve done to you; for the way humanity has used your wealth and beauty for their own gain and left you with nothing but poisoned air and dying life.

We’re killing you, slowly, with every product mass-produced in a factory, with every car we drive, and every piece of plastic thrown down upon your soil.

After all you’ve done for us, we still hurt you. You have given us life, sheltered us, fed us, nurtured us, and we’ve taken it for granted.

No wonder you send tsunamis—pushing your anger up, up, up through the water to crash against our shores.

No wonder you make the earth quake under our feet—you’re trying to remind us you’re still here.

No wonder you send fire up through the cracks in the earth—it’s punishment for burning down your forests and sending our smoke into the atmosphere.

You have every right to be angry with us.

I would be, too, if I’d provided everything—life itself—to those who would destroy me.

But, Mother Earth, we aren’t all like that.

Many don’t care, it’s true, but some of us want to save you.

We want to give life back to you, shelter you from this harm, feed your soil with nutrients, nurture you until you’re healthy and full of life again.

I want this for you.

Mother Earth, I want to apologize for what’s happened, on behalf of the millions before me who didn’t care enough to protect you.

The rest of us will do what we can to heal you, because you are everything to us—the earth we walk upon, the oceans we swim in, the air we breathe—and we owe it to you.