Mother Earth

My literal, human mother never made my nose run or my eyes water for weeks on end. She never sent a swarm of wasps up from the grass to sting my arm and legs, as happened last month.

Don’t get me wrong. I love to walk a forest trail or weed the garden. I love to watch deer cross the lawn or wild turkeys peck at the grass. I know humankind evolved on this planet and depends on its bounty for survival. So much on Earth inspires our gratitude. “Mother Earth” is a fitting metaphor, if we remember it’s only a metaphor.

The problem comes when we take it literally and expect Earth to give us maternal love. The “appeal to nature fallacy” equates natural with safe. Sometimes it is; sometimes it isn’t. Picture spring wildflowers and clear mountain streams. Picture arsenic, cyanide, and deadly avalanches—all natural. Yet people will pay a premium for “organic” or “natural” over synthetic products that are chemically identical.

The fallacy grows dangerous when parents trust “natural immunity” to protect their children better than vaccine-induced immunity. Before measles vaccine came to market in 1963, measles infected some three to four million Americans a year. Though only a fraction were formally reported, the disease was far from harmless. Each year about 48,000 measles patients were hospitalized in the U.S., 1,000 developed encephalitis (swelling of the brain), and 400 to 500 died. Vaccine changed all that. By the end of the century, the U.S. was measles-free. Recently, alas, the appeal to nature fallacy has fed vaccine hesitancy and led to an epidemic. More than 3,500 measles cases have been reported in the U.S. this year so far.

Call Earth “Mother” if you wish, but don’t think “she” loves us or hates us. Earth doesn’t care. Nature doesn’t have intentions for us. It’s up to us to study the facts, consider the consequences, and make our choices with intention for ourselves and our human family.