Gaze into the domain of the gods and you will find all the colors of the rainbow, and a few shades beyond, in the spiraling beauty of galaxies. A hundred million stars per galaxy: Each one will go to seed, the largest of them going nova and bursting forth the very dust of our being.

The black veil is bejeweled with the destructive stories of star versus planet, where rock smashes rock and gravity reduces worlds to atoms. Space is a violent, turbulent arena full of solar gladiators and planetary executioners who obey only physics.

Comets hurtle towards suns; asteroids careen in all directions. Erratic radiation bursts, burn and destroy, traveling trillions of light years in all directions. Only the vast expanse of forever gives us any hope of not being hit. So far we’ve been lucky.

Earth Day is a time for diverse responses to our planet’s needs. Earth Day is a time to reflect for some, while others declare issues or solutions. For a growing segment, it is a time to act.  While this holiday has not fully taken root in the greeting card industry, nor do we receive paid time off, it is the most practical of our holidays for it raises awareness in a clear voice of mending of the worn spots on our spherical home.

Earth Day holds water for me because I realize this seven-continent, five-ocean world of wonder is the only place we have. Thus, I implore you to make good decisions in regard to Mother Earth. Some of you may one day work for an oil company. You may have the choice between buying cheap, aging, single-hull oil tankers or new, double-hulled oil tankers at a much greater cost to your company. Do the responsible thing for your planet and your fellow man.

Our environment connects us all, in success and disaster. If a fisherman can’t fish due to an oil spill, that has a ripple effect beyond his family and town, because it’s never just one fisherman or one city.

Beyond our sky, into the black, there is not a single safe place where even a meager few human survivors can go to start over or ask for help. We are alone in the stewardship of our planet. The universe may take Earth from us forcibly: so be it. Do not let us die out because we chose to reap all the untold profit we could mine in the name of industry, instead of conserving and managing resources wisely.

No matter how many resources we convert into profit, we can’t buy more clean air or water from the stars.