Dear Humankind,

Everything seemed to be going so well -the last few million years have been so
exciting, I guess I thought that it would last forever. ..but lately I feel that things
have changed; we have been drifting apart. It started so innocently; when you
started walking on two legs, I was astonished - so few of you do that! It seemed so
innocent, an adaptation that allowed you to see predators and reach food that
would be far outside your grasp. Soon you were using your new legs to your
advantage, re-learning to run and jump and climb, your muscles adapting to the
new posture. It was amusing at first, I must admit (you were so clumsy and
awkward) but you soon had the hang of it. Then something remarkable happened,
now that your front legs were free, you began to use them to manipulate objects
and create tools. Some of the creatures on me had done this, but they were
physically limited in what they could do, with your new "hands" there were many
more possibilities.
I see now that "hands" were the start of the problem. Once you started to use your
mind to manipulate, you could never go back. Each successive generation became
more and more dexterous, and your mind developed along with them. What was
once instinct was forced to develop abstraction, spatial reasoning, and a more
definite concept of cause and effect, and thus a concept of the continuum of time:
past, present, and future. As the epochs flew by, I began to wonder at your powers
of invention...it seemed that nothing was beyond your grasp for too long. Before I
knew it, you were dominating other species, manipulating them in ways I never
thought possible, 'taming' them. That should have been a warning, but I was too
infatuated with you, with you and the things that your newfound intelligence was
bringing into being. I ignored it when you reduced the mighty wolf to a simpering
toy, when you roped the auroch and slowly bred the life out of it; I permitted you to
treat my friends like they were only pieces of meat for your own benefit. I even
ignored it when you began to rape me, abuse me for what you found beneath the
surface...you knew I would do nothing, so you simply took what you wanted,
producing larger and deeper scars in your insatiable quest. All of this and more, I
allowed, since I saw that it was your youth and inexperience in control. You were
given gifts that no other species had ever possessed, of course you would need
time to understand the responsibility that comes with power. So I waited patiently
for the day when you would look at what you had done and feel remorse.
But that day never came. You continued to develop, but in a way that I had never
seen (and hope I never do again). Rather than learn from your mistakes, you
magnified them. You believed that your power was its own justification, that your
enslavement of your fellow creatures, pillaging of my body, and modification of your
surroundings the 'natural way of things'; you believed this in defiance of the entire
sphere of existence around you and ridiculed or destroyed anyone or anything that
would challenge that notion. In the name of advancement, of human progress, you
yoked, ate, or burned anything that you could lay your detestable hands on.

I say this not to hurt you, though the bitterness is obvious I am sure, but in an final,
desperate attempt to show you the error of your ways. You have become too
powerful for me to destroy, at least not without involving most of the innocent life
on this planet. Can't you see the damage that you do? In your quest for knowledge,
you have fabricated things that should not exist, things that poison your air, water,
and bodies. Your reach exceeds your grasp, yet you continue to deny yourself any
possibility of restraint, mindlessly producing more and more of you, requiring more
and more of my resources to support. You teeter on the edge of oblivion, heedless of
the risks, thinking only of the glory to be wrung from those things around you.
Perhaps that is the largest injustice of all, your contempt for life extends even to
your own race. Competition exists in all species, but you have raised the concept to
an art form. Where other species compete for resources, for the right to survive,
you compete out of some misguided worship of antagonism, and organize your
society to reward the most ruthless and unthinkingly cruel among you. You have no
need. There has never been a race more secure in its food source, housing, or
safety than you. It is within your power to ensure that no member of your species
ever goes hungry again, but you choose to punish, to discriminate based on the
smallest of differences, even if it gives you no tangible advantage besides an
inflated sense of your own superiority. The best among you, those who could lead
you to a golden age of responsibility and reason, are toiling in pathetically juvenile
and ultimately superficial pursuits. You study the stars, hoping to catch a glimpse of
that which surrounds us, while millions of your own live in squalor and the world
that you live in slowly chokes on your progeny. You are so obsessed with your
legacy, with the freedom to act without constraints that you kill each other
relentlessly for fleeting tactical advantage. The innocent blood you shed could fill
my oceans, yet you continue to find new reasons to kill.
Long gone are the days when you knelt in reverence to all that is around you; when
you were humble enough to realize that you are but a part of a delicate chain of life,
a web whose members extend far beyond your natural perception. It is fitting that
you should find your analog in the smallest and most primitive of all things that can
be called alive: you are a virus, a plague that ravages with no thought for tomorrow;
a self-replicating killing machine that destroys all it touches, leaving nothing behind.
Those of you who have realized this will not speak, fearful of being shouted down
and ridiculed for their beliefs, for belittling the human mind with thoughts of
limitation. Blithely unaware or uncaring of the damage, you continue to create new
and better widgets in an attempt to stay one step ahead of the reaper. When will
you have enough? When the last wild animal is dead? When the last unspoilt forest
withers?
I could go on, but there is no need - by now, either you will understand or you won't;
either way, this is goodbye. I wish things could be different, that you could
understand the full scope of your actions, but I don't believe you are capable. In
your recklessness, you have killed us both, though the death will take a long time in

coming. Even attempts to escape your handiwork are undone by your own
shortsightedness, perhaps that is the greatest gift you could ever give the universe.

With Love and Regret,

Earth