It's not the planet that needs saving. The Earth, no matter how badly we abuse it, is going to be just fine. (At least for about 5 billion years until the sun goes all red giant and torches this third rock.) It has overcome worse scourges than what we're dealing it now. It adapts. It self-corrects. Over time, anything that causes too much harm to the global ecosystem is wiped out.
Nope, it's not Earth that needs saving. It's us.
Earth Day, with its "save the planet" rhetoric and high-handed prescription of pithy, low-impact lifestyle solutions, has come to represent the worst of the environmental movement -- its marginalization and materialization.
Don't get me wrong, it was a noble idea at first. On the first Earth Day in 1970, people around the world really did need to be shaken into understanding how we, as humans, affect the world - -the ecological systems -- around us. But like so many tools our environmental forefathers handed down to us, it has failed miserably to adapt and react to the scale of the crises we face. So on this April 22, 2008, as scores of non-profit organizations email out fundraising appeals and trend-savvy companies bolster their eco-cred by sponsoring parties and concerts and expos, I can't help but shake my head and wonder how we continue to get it so wrong. How we, as environmentalists, keep willingly pushing this singular day as some sort of blessed holiday -- this random day in April, all-too-easily forgotten by May -- to celebrate all the "solutions" (organic t-shirts! "Ten Ways to Green Your Life" lists! biodegradable forks!) that won't get us anywhere close to where we need to be to truly deal with the ecological crises at hand. Crises that the Earth will easily, given a few thousand years, rebound from, but we, as a species, may well not.
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Earth Day is not, and never has been, about saving the planet. It's all about saving US -- but People Day doesn't have much capital -- not much traction -- does it?
At the core of every environmental issue and first in the mind of every environmentalist or "green freak" or (choose your name) is the acceptance and deep understanding of the simplest fact: human beings are absolutely, utterly and inseparably, dependent upon other species to survive. We cannot survive alone, as a single species.
Or as it is put: "We did not descend from Heaven nor are we the progeny of space aliens. We evolved within this environment and are so highly specialized to this planet that we cannot survive a moment without it."
Saving the Earth is saving ourselves. Earth Day is all about us -- was when I worked on the first one, and it still is today.
But I think that you're totally wrong in saying that Earth Day "is not, and never has been, about saving the planet." If only because yesterday, at one of the panels I spoke on, there were people with signs saying "save the planet." And I simply think that this messaging is folly. I'm not suggesting People Day. I simply think we need to make people realize that the ecological crises that we're creating aren't about "saving the planet" (again--I disagree with you that this isn't the takeaway message for the majority of people participating in Earth Day--it's the message that I see repeated again and again), but are about saving ourselves.
I agree and understand entirely that we as humans are part and parcel of a greater ecosystem--that we couldn't survive without the earth's systems functioning as they always have (and always should). But I'm also cynical--and feel that the majority of humans think in more anthropocentric terms, don't worry so much about "mother earth," and we need to connect with them on more selfish, human-species specific terms.
You and I agree about our place in the earth's ecosystem; I just don't feel that most people make that connection (and it's not a message that's communicated well on Earth Day) and we need to hit them with an argument that resonates--our fate as a species.
It's interesting to see that Canada puts out nearly as much CO2 per capita as the US.
China is nearing the total CO2 out put of the US and will soon pass us and become the worlds largest CO2 producer. Some think they have already done that..
Many radicals act as if the US is the only problem when it comes to CO2. Those days are long gone. Without an answer for the China problem and the India problem, what the rest of the world does may not matter much. Depending on who you believe, China is turning on one or two new coal plants every week.
It was discouraging to see the democratic controlled congress pass an IGNORANT ethanol bill that not only makes global warming WORSE it starves people to death by pushing up the cost of food. How can we make real progress when destructive, knee-jerk, anti-science solutions are pursued because they are "politically correct" and pushed by simple minded environmental radicals?
I predict the democrats will soon be forced to undo the ill conceived ethanol legislation they just passed. In Europe they are already talking about backing off on ethanol to help the worlds poor and to save the planet from the negative environmental impact. It's environmental radicalism coming face to face with real science and radicalism is finally going to lose out to reality.
No argument about Canada--they've got to work on reducing their dependence on fossil fuels as much as we do.
We can't scapegoat China. Their per capita emissions (the only mark that really matters) are a mere one-quarter of the U.S.'s. We've spend 100 years pumping the atmosphere full of carbon to build our economy.
Yes, China and India (and the rest of the developing world) need to be helped out in stemming the carbon base of their growing economy, but we are the only ones who can (and should) lead on this.
Ethanol is the worst idea ever. No argument here. While there is potential for certain types of biofuels, turning fields of food into fields of fuel for really a nominal improvement in GHG emissions is folly.
I'm ashamed to be a Canadian with our pathetic track record concerning the Environment. I welcome all the criticism that the world can heap on us. Maybe if the world criticizes us enough we as a nation, will be shamed into doing something meaningful. Unfortunately, we have a Prime Minister who is a carbon copy of George Bush.
Man is like a cancerous cell eating up the Earth, no other species is so destructive. If man do not care for his enviroment then he has no purpose to exist on Earth.
Earth Day will bring awareness to the future generations, even so, they have to make great effort to lift away the unwanted burden place upon their shoulders by us, to ensure they have a future. In Earth Day we hope to start a lasting legacy of care for our Mother Earth.
Let's hope no country will take advantage and make an issue out of preserving the enviroment to start a War .
This year 1.4 million people will be hearing the devastating news that they to have cancer.
Scientist tell us that 70-80% of all cancer are linked to the environment (as opposed to heredity); meaning that most all cancer comes from outside of our bodies.
Everyday more than 1,500 men, women and children die of cancer in the U.S.
it can be different.
The price of convenience on the earth has been expensive for not only the earth but to human health.
Bill Couzens, Founder Lesscancer.org
http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/secondhandsmoke/factsheets/factsheet9.html
www.stjude.org
www.nfcr.org/
www.mskcc.org
www.cdc.gov/cancer/
www.cancer.gov/
www.upci.upmc.edu/research/ccps/ccontrol/index.html - 9k
www.environmentaloncology.org
http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/64214.cfm
http://www.hopkinskimmelcancercenter.org/
http://www.karmanos.org/
http://www.cancer.med.umich.edu/
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/home/index.asp
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/philip-parks/
http://www.cbcrp.org/
How about more natural causes such as radon? Not man made, naturally occurring, outside the body right?
Statistics don't lie, but liars use statistics. That's what I like to remember when someone suddenly pops out statistics that supposedly prove something that they don't prove at all.
http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/secondhandsmoke/factsheets/factsheet9.html
And yes there are natural occurring environmental links that have been linked to cancer. You are correct.
But you are off base to assume I am a liar because I used statistics that are easily found.
Make no mistake cancer is manufactured. Scientist will tell you that Cancer is not an unlucky roll of the nice. These exposures do come from outside of the body on a multitude of levels to include, behavior.
We need to expand our view of cancer to include work in prevention. While the cure is absolutely critical, prevention does warrant research. We do have more cancer than ever before and while we are better at curing cancer, cancer should not be an expected stage of life.
Its is critical when people speak of cancer either the cure and or prevention that they are certain they speak on the basis of sound science there is little room for guess work.
Bill Couzens Founder Lesscancer.org
Not saying the environment should not be saved. What is the biggest worry for me is the biodiversity, that which evolved over millions of years, may be lost. The loss of this immensely complex and beautiful biodiversity would be the single most backwards thing humans have ever done. So much could be, and has been, learned from studying this.
Unfortunately, Biolgical Diversity - the diversity of all life on Earth - doesn't just include those pesky whales and spotted-owls; it also includes the honeybees and cows and the grains and grasses and the bacteria in our gut that allows us to digest the food we eat.
Nope, if the ecosystem collapses for any reason - if it even changes significantly from what it is right now - we're toast. We're at the top, and like the dinosaurs that preceeded us, we'll be the very first to go when the pyramid falls apart.
The climate change deniers say that we can't change the environment; that if the climate is changing, it isn't our fault, and we'll have to adapt. However, humans adapt largely by changing their environment, whether it's by plowing fields, erecting buildings, or any of the many other ways we reshape our habitats to suit our needs. The way we adapt to climate change is by controlling it. Otherwise we're going to be scratching our heads trying to figure out how to adapt to massive freshwater shortages.
Another aspect of the environmentalist message that should be restructured pertains to the three steps of sustainable design: minimize loads, maximize efficiencies, and select renewable energy sources -- in this order of priority. It's not very useful to think about gigantic photothermal power plants if we're not also thinking about reducing the amount of output energy we need and the amount of input energy required to produce it. We don't want waste our resources oversizing these plants because we're consuming more energy than necessary.
yes, maybe, after the current ecosystem and the majority of it's species are gone.
In this country we have been ill-served by an ignorant advertising based media, which, with the lone exception of NPR, does not find the demise of OUR ecosystem news worthy.
the Huffington post is no exception, obssessed with he said she said politics, media and entertainment gossip.
It's time for science to start hitting the front page here.
As too earth day being all wrong---at this level of awareness it rings out more than ever.