The Planet Earth Shouldn't Just Get One Day
Earth Day, which arrives on April 22nd, is now much the way of Black History Month: Observed, but not really taken all that seriously. They each share similar fates and tracks. Earth Day’s branding and visibility is rising as our planet’s destruction from oil, gas and chemical-fueled climate crisis accelerates.
Black History Month is a permanent staple in American holiday celebrations even as corporate, academic, governing and legal institutions destroy everything from affirmative action, voting rights and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) with meticulous precision. Each openly displays an ugly paradox: General public consensus around celebrating them, but too many social, political and economic barriers in the way to not just truly enjoy them, but to actually understand and benefit from them.
As Earth Day arrives, no issue is more profound and more important than the health of our planet. Our environment. This is our complete life support system. The only way we have to survive as a human species. Without air, we have no oxygen to breath, and so we die from suffocation. Without water, we have no way to hydrate, so we then die from thirst. Without soil, we have no way to grow food and we, therefore, starve … to death. The equation of a destroyed planet ends up with the same final result: Death. And yet, the Earth only gets one day of global observance. NASA climate scientist Peter Kalmus captures this perfectly in a recent tweet …
Only one day akin to a moment of silence or needed prayer to keep it, to keep ourselves, alive. It is stunning the levels of dangerous silliness, the patent ignorance the original Earth Day has devolved into. The creators of Earth Day had, of course (and just like the creator of Black History Month), hoped for much more. Instead, we ride steadily to oblivion and defy the magnitude of the science. We now find cute ways to help the polluters who persistently pollute circumvent any form of responsibility; little pressure is placed on policymakers to push as urgently as they must as we brace for another year as hotter as the previous one. Not that quick tips on household recycling or eliminating unnecessary drips from the tap or transitioning from your car to a bike aren’t useful. But we didn’t arrive at the tipping point of planetary doom because we, as individuals, decided to drive into work every day. We arrived here because of extractive and exploitative economic systems. We are here because the companies who drill, extract, store, distribute and sell the toxic oil and gas that fuels our cars won’t stop it despite all signs our shared life support system is dying from such.
Earth Day must strike a greater tone of urgency now. Earth Day is every day. The one thing we are responsible for is the collective political action we’re taking towards creating the public policy needed for a survivable future. Our lives - and the lives of those we raise - now are, literally, depending on it.