Sentinel Opinion: Earth Day; It's us who will suffer for our foolish lack of caring for this, our home

Well, not to worry. Earth will be fine.

It’s we who will suffer, along with myriad other species that call this planet home.

Warming temperatures may be naught but a temporary blip in the geologic life of our planet, but for us, they’re really bad news. Extended heat waves mean more deaths from heat stroke and dehydration, and increased cardiovascular, respiratory and cerebrovascular disease. This may be most felt in third-world nations that lack air-conditioning and other modern amenities, but it will also hit hard in urban areas, where a lack of cooling trees and greenery is exacerbated by heat-absorbing asphalt.

A warmer planet also means less usable land for crops, and will require more water and energy to keep what crops we do have growing. Warmer temperatures will also increase the frequency of days with unhealthy levels of ground-level ozone and other particulates, leading to an increase in respiratory illness and deaths. Note that air pollution is already the killer of 6.5 million people a year, according to the International Energy Agency.

A larger tropical region means a larger population of mosquitoes, ticks and fleas, which carry viruses, bacteria and parasites. So expect a surge in West Nile, EEE, malaria and Lyme disease, among other potentially fatal conditions.

And all of this is just the effect on humanity of rising temperatures. Add in rising seas, droughts and the extinction of species we use for food, and we can easily imagine the competition for scarcer resources causing an uptick in war as well.

In short, we may well kill ourselves off. The Earth, on the other hand … this miraculous home with just the perfect conditions to support our form of life, will continue to spin merrily along. You see, it matters not to our host planet whether the parasites that inhabit it stay, leave or die off. It has no sense of purpose in maintaining our existence. The term “Mother Earth” — or “Mother Nature” — is itself a construct we created, perhaps to lessen the sense that our home world is somehow in this with us, that we’re not on our own.

It is true, however, that this has been a hospitable place to evolve. Miraculous, indeed. What are the odds of a random mass of rock and gas somehow collecting, along its journey, the exact elements, in proportion, to sustain carbon-based life, while falling into an orbit at just the right temperate zone? One in a million? A trillion? Something far larger?

Steep odds indeed, and not likely, then, that we’ll find another reachable home in the relatively short lifespan of humanity.

Really, Earth Day simply serves mainly as a reminder that we rely on our climate and environment. These are what make Earth different from all other planets we know of so far. And what makes taking care of it vital to us.

So be selfish; be green.