Earth Day is almost upon us. April 22, the day that we all wear tree-themed shirts, throw a parade in the earth’s honor and then shovel all the trash our Earth Day celebrations generated into her landfills. No, Earth Day has its merits. Yes, it’s a giant marketing racket when corporations pretend they *aren’t* 80% responsible for the destruction of our planet. But, Earth Day does speak to children and it gets them on board with climate change and environmental education. Which is why Dolly Parton’s message during her NPR interview hit home. Dolly spoke about her hope that we’d treat the world around us with a little more respect. Then she put her thoughts in terms that people of any age would understand, even a child. Dolly said not looking out for Mother Nature was “like, being ugly to your mama.”
Dolly Parton has the best way of saying that humans should take better care of the planet.
“Well, my hope for the environment, for all things living, and all things good, just nature in general, [is] that we should pay more attention to how we’re treating our mountains, how we’re treating our world, how we’re just treating everything,” Parton said in an interview with National Geographic Travel’s Amy Alipio, published Wednesday, ahead of Earth Day on April 22. “We’re just mistreating Mother Nature. That’s, like, being ugly to your mama, you know? That’s like being disrespectful, you know? Seriously. So, I really think we all need to pay closer attention to taking better care of the things that God gave us freely and that we’re so freely messing up. We need to rethink that and do better.”
The “being ugly to your mama” line is the soundbite of the interview, but much of what Dolly said resonates. I believe that if people thought more about their footprint on the world, they’d make adjustments to treat it better. Obviously, that mostly applies to companies who need to make significant changes on every level. But it’s going about it all so “freely” that I think Dolly really has a point. And that goes back to the kids. My kids, who had markedly more environmental education in their schools than I did, constantly point out ways I cause waste. And now I can’t make that action without considering it first, so I usually don’t. Is it making a dramatic change? No. But the point is to change the mindset and that’s working. Because when Mama Earth feels disrespected, she will burn this sh* to the ground. Literally.
Which is something Dolly had to witness, recently, as wildfires raged through her state of Tennessee and threatened Dollywood. Dolly posted that she was keeping up with the progression of the fires and expressed her gratitude for the firefighters. She asked for prayers for everyone affected. This isn’t the first time she’s sent this message, either. In 2016 Dollywood was also threatened by terrible wildfires that destroyed East Tennessee. We’re about to start the first of our two major fire seasons here in California and we are in a major drought. We’re about to get are butts whooped for tickin’ off Mother N.
Photo credit: Insyagram
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