We’ve Finally Tickled the Earth, and She Is Laughing.

Mankind, old comedian that he is, will do most anything for a laugh and, apparently, tickled the ribs of Mother Earth, where she had previously failed to find humor in its transgressions.

It probably wasn’t either sufficient, nor entertaining enough, to drill down through her skin for the precious fluids of oil, gas, ancient water sources and magma. She simply frowned and tapped her shoe, anticipating a punch line and finding none. Stripping her coal, clear-cutting her forests, and paving over what greenery we could access, brought not even a thin smile.

It took the quintupling of human population in less than a century to make her lift her head and venture a grin.

Something humorous was finally going on and the humanity-show finally seemed to have possibilities in its second act.

COP 30 was the gag, and three decades of bringing the powerful human population of the planet together, so they could ponder a bit and do nothing, made her sit up, take her hands out of her lap, and pay attention.

Unnoticed by decades of COP attendees, global warming had sneaked in the side door and promised a bit of added humor to the dull presentations on the main stage. She rearranged her dress, smoothed her skirt and a slow smile appeared, just at the corners of her mouth.

A year of wildfires, floods, hurricanes, monsoons, and earthquakes had spread across the planet, bringing untold death and destruction. Yet, no solutions were advanced because, what the hell, Exxon promised no damage was actually being done.

She roared with laughter, and all heads turned in her direction.

Finally, humanity had managed to deliver a joke worth hearing.

Perhaps too late to save itself, but in plenty of time for the planet to shake it like water off a wet dog, and move on. Methinks it’s well past time for that. The inimitable George Carlin has a few words to offer on that subject, should you care to listen.

Once we’re gone, the Earth’s surface ecology will change a bit, with both oceans and land masses celebrating a new Darwinian age, even though Darwin himself is gone (the song is over, but the melody lingers on). But it will reclaim its perfect environment for life, just not human life.

It may take a thousand years, or so, to grow over our cities and other human crimes against nature, but a thousand years is but an eyewink in planetary history.

The dinosaurs wandered the globe for 175 million years, destroyed nothing, and it took a major meteor hit to finally bring their reign to a conclusion, through no fault of their own.

Humanity has thus far occupied this gracious, endearing and enduring planet for a mere two million rotations around the sun, yet it indelibly and cruelly left its mark, without an excuse to call its own.

But fair is fair, we did okay for a few brief periods.

I’m told that the indigenous people who inhabited North America before Europeans arrived (and mistook them for Indians) existed for at least 15,000 years. Supporting tens of millions of their people across diverse ecosystems — forests, plains, deserts, wetlands, and coasts. They used (but never abused) the land intensively, but within sustainable cycles, leaving no trace.

I treasure my copy of a marvelous book, titled Touch the Earth, which does credit to their philosophical commentaries, as related to their White European conquerors. Buy one, if you can find a copy, new or used, you won’t be disappointed.

There are currently 574 federally-recognized American Indian tribes and Alaska Native entities remaining in the United States today. American Indian tribal lands occupy a distinct legal space. They are sovereign territories under federal protection, with limited but real self-governing powers—not subject to most state laws and held in trust by the United States for the benefit of the tribes.

They are, in my view, an unrecognized American national treasure.

Mother Earth smiled upon them during their reign, and yet today.

It would be a fair trade if, after we leave, they remain.