Drains to bay, an Earth Day message

Some things are as obvious as gravity: Here’s the drain. There’s the bay. The geologist knows this so well that it never needs to be stated. The earliest thinkers of modern geology, as far back as Nicolas Steno in the 1600s at least, recognized that rocks arise from the everyday process of mud washing downstream to the sea. The signs are obvious in the petrified ripple and current marks, the fossilized sea creatures and the sandstones as clean as the stuff of beaches. “Drains to bay” might as well be written on the geologist’s coat of arms.

The rest of us need occasional reminders. Many of us never gave it a moment’s thought, probably those same Oaklanders who think that bears live in the woods up on Skyline. Earth Day is for them, the ignorant. Ignorant people are not bad people. Indeed, they’re only selectively ignorant, in that they don’t know something I consider important. Surely I’m just as ignorant in terms of what they care about. Anyway, “drains to bay” is a good start and it needs to be pointed out everywhere, even here where it’s obvious on Embarcadero East at the mouth of 14th Street Creek.

Earth Day, too, should always point out the basics. The rest of the year is for learning more and for putting knowledge into daily action—for Earth Life.

“Drains to bay” means that what we throw away doesn’t go away, any more than the ancient ripples and prehistoric creatures are totally lost.