People who march in protest of one or another alleged abuse of the natural world often carry signs reading “There Is No Planet B.” What they mean is that this is the only planet we’ve got, and so we’d better take care of it.

Fair enough, I guess.

Turning off fossil fuels, which is what a lot of environmental activists advocate to save the planet, will mean a lot of cold and hungry and suddenly immobile people, scarce to no fertilizer, scarce to no electricity, scarce to no automobile traffic, scarce to no ships and trucks bringing food and medicine around the world. The Hormuz crisis is currently demonstrating the scenario for which many environmentalists hope. Saving planet A looks an awful lot like killing planet A’s residents.

But, well, point taken. There is no planet B; that’s correct, in a sense — for the time being, at least, until someone colonizes Mars.

But there are theological implications to the clever “There Is No Planet B” posterboard line. Big picture, this *is* planet B.

We humans used to live in a much nicer neighborhood: Paradise. Was a giant garden, I’m told, free of worry or shame, free of death and sin.

As we tend to do with our habitats, though, we humans fouled that arrangement and lost it. We found ourselves exiled into this world, where sorrow follows transgression and where the murderer can boast of plying the truly oldest profession.

We had it made. We had it all. We knew God close up, like a family unbroken. Then we blew it and had to suffer our way through one hard day after another right here on the doorstep of Hell.

That is this world. Planet B. Earth may look great in National Geographic photographs, but theologically speaking it’s not what anyone would have chosen had things not been up to us. Things were up to us, though. And we screwed up, as usual. So we got stuck with planet B.

When I see the environmental types with their signs I always wonder if they have thought through what it means to cherish this planet. I’d like to live in a clean place. I’d like to make sure everyone can be warm and well-fed and healthy. But the fact is that this is a loaner universe. We’ll have to give it back one way or the other. The cosmic self-destruct button has already been pushed, and we’re just idling until the end times come.

Idling and in pain. Idling and stealing from one another. Idling and weeping over the ever-arriving processionals of the dead.

This *is* planet B. Worth keeping tidy, sure. Better to suffer in a swept room than in a pigsty. But however much we cherish planet B, this is not the place any of us will spend eternity.