MAKING THE MOST OF EARTH DAY

On April 22nd 1970 some 20m Americans joined Senator Gaylord Nelson's call to celebrate the first Earth Day, an event described in the New York Times as an “interlude of national contemplation of problems and man's deteriorating environment". Since then the holiday has expanded in both size and scope. The Earth Day Network estimates that more than 1 billion people in 174 countries participate in Earth Day activities, making it the "largest secular civic event in the world".

The need for national contemplation of our environmental problems has never been more dire, given the escalating threat of climate change. We are steadily nearing the temperature at which “potentially large numbers of extinctions” and “major increases in hunger and water shortage risks” will take place, according to a 2006 report from the UK Meteorological Office.

Yet in this critical year, with the Kyoto Protocol up for renegotiation and serious carbon regulations finally on the table in America, the most significant public event planned by the Environmental Protection Agency was a rock concert featuring the Flaming Lips over the weekend.

The band puts on a great show, to be sure, but perhaps the “oodles of electricity" it used to power a strobe light, neon-flashing gong and smoke machine sent a confusing message. Before their performance Wayne Coyne, the lead singer, noted that “when you're at a Flaming Lips show you almost can forget about all the struggles and the negativity and the hate that does exist in the world.” But given recent polls that show only one in three Americans believe climate change is human induced, distracting people from the bad news seems unnecessary.

Joseph Romm, an influential blogger on climate-change, has suggested in Salon that the name "Earth Day" is misleading because the day "is not about preserving the earth or creation but about preserving ourselves."

Yes, we can't preserve ourselves if we don't preserve a livable climate, and we can't preserve a livable climate if we don't preserve the earth. But the focus needs to stay on the health and well-being of billions of humans because, ultimately, humans are the ones who will experience the most prolonged suffering. And if enough people come to see it that way, we have a chance of avoiding the worst.

He prefers “Triage Day”, since “we have fiddled like Nero for far too long to save the whole earth or all of its species”.

Clearly Earth Day should not be one for vacuous celebration but for activism. This is not just about personal recycling and other acts of domestic virtue, but about pushing for new legislation, mandating change on a grand scale. The first Earth Day helped create the EPA and hastened the passage of the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act. As the world’s largest greenhouse-gas emitters, Americans should remember the original reason for Earth Day: more contemplation, less confetti.

~ CORBIN HIAR

Picture credit: hive, freschwill (both via Flickr)