Jack Heald of Rockonomics offers some insightful thoughts on Earth Day:
Earth Day. Bleh.
I’m convinced Earth Day was conceived by tea-sipping western European elites who live in mild climates where nature is a devoted, loving and fertile servant to man. I know better. I spent my childhood in Oklahoma and half my adult life in Texas.
Oklahoma springtime meant tornadoes, thunderstorms, wicked unexpected heatwaves, late snowstorms and crop-crushing hail storms. Summer brought drought, searing heat, blowing dust and energy-sapping humidity. Fall was an explosion of allergens to make up for the relatively mild weather. Winter was tree-crushing ice storms. The ground was 90% limestone, so growing anything required dedication, hard work, sweat, perseverance and more than a bit of luck. We had poisonous snakes and venomous and/or biting bugs. In one 18 month stretch, my hometown of 35000 people suffered a devastating direct hit by a tornado and two “100 Year” floods. In other words, “Mother Nature” was mean, nasty, ill-tempered and downright murderous most all the time.
Texas was like Oklahoma only more so. Literally everything in nature was trying to kill you…
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