PLANET EARTH IS OK AND YOU HOW ARE YOU DOING ?
On the occasion of the International Year of the Planet Earth,
the Earth, our
planet granted an exclusive interview to UN Special.
JEAN MICHEL JAKOBOWICZ
UNSpecial: The United Nations
General Assembly has decided that
2008 would be your International
Year. What do you think of it ?
The Earth : It’s very nice of the GA and please
convey my thanks to it. But I am told that the
same General Assembly has declared 2008 to
be the International Year of the Potato. It’s
not very flattering for me to be placed in the
same bag as the potato. But having said that,
the gesture is there and I appreciate it.
How are you ?
I feel very, very well. With my 4 billion and
a half years I feel in great shape, just like on
the first day.
I’m a little surprised because all our
specialists tell that you are in bad
shape !
I really don’t see why they’re talking such
rubbish. I have from time to time a bit of a
chill, a few cracks in my crust, but that’s all.
The period of major changes that followed
my birth is far behind me. I am now a very
stable planet and according to many people,
very pretty.
If I may insist, you are supposed to be
sick from pollution, global warming,
and holes in your ozone layer...
Tell me, young man, you’re a little bit obsessed.
I am perfectly fit, a few degrees increase
in my surface climate doesn’t mean that my
health is affected ! My kernel is more than
6000o Celsius, so 2 or 3 degrees above or below
is of absolutely no importance to me. As
for my ozone layer, allow me to smile my
dear. I lived without an ozone layer for hundreds
of millions, even billions of years and I
was no worse off than now. As for pollution,
there again you make me smile ! When thousands
of volcanoes were letting loose their
foul-smelling fumes that obscured the sky,
making nights that lasted several years, winters
that lasted for decades – that was real pollution
and not the few fumes that humanity let
escape from their ridiculous chimneys.
But I don’t understand, our experts ...
Your experts have a tiny problem which is
that they are humans like you and they don’t
think further than their navel. What they
call threats to the Earth are in fact threats to humanity and not to me. When you finally
decide to call a spade a spade you will eventually
recognize that the real threat is one
that may destroy you, not me ! You’re committing
collective suicide by polluting what
allows you to live. You are right now cutting
the branch you’re sitting on ! Climate warming
or climate cooling, I’ve seen thousands,
even millions of them since I was born. Billions
of species of animals and plants have
appeared and then disappeared. It seems
that your pretentiousness has no limits. Humanity
has the impression that it holds all
powers on nature, even the power to make
it disappear. That is totally wrong ! When
humans have disappeared from my surface,
there will be other species that will replace
you and all that you have created will disappear
in a few years, at the worst in a few
hundred thousand years. The only real danger
that could threaten me is being hit by a
giant asteroid, and believe me you can’t do
a thing about that.
So for you what men are currently
doing has absolutely no importance
whatsoever and they can continue
to pollute as they want !
That’s not at all what I said. What I said was
that personally, as a planet, I don’t care.
First I was empty, then some forms of life
emerged, replaced by others, and others.
My dear young man, let me tell you a secret:
I weigh 6000 billion billion tonnes and you
can’t weigh more than 85 kilos. I know that
you’re quite clever, that you have tools, machines
and even bombs that enable you to
multiply your strength. But between you
and me, 6000 billion billion tonnes versus 85
kilos makes you look smaller than a grain of
sand in front of an elephant. I repeat what I
said earlier, pollution and all the rest of it are
your problem. Keep me out of it. I know that
for your leaders it’s much easier to say that
you’re damaging the Earth, you’re destroying
animal species, than to say : “Watch out,
friends, you’re killing yourselves !” Because
these are words that frighten, and governments
don’t like to mention problems they
cannot solve ! Be fully responsible for your
actions because if you continue to pollute as
you are doing, eventually you’ll disappear.
Whatever happens to you, I will continue to
revolve around the sun in 365 days and a
quarter and the universe will continue to
expand as it has done for several billion
years. Between you and me, I have only
one piece of advice to give you : keep on celebrating
me as much as you like, it doesn’t
hurt anyone, but above all think of yourselves.
Do whatever you can to avoid ecological
disasters that could destroy you.
There are enough hostile elements that you
don’t control, don’t add your own stupidity
to them !
