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Earth Day 2007:How Many More?

The rst Earth Day, April 22, 1970, marked the earliest

dawn of my environmental consciousness, and I was

so hopeful.

In southern Alabama, the channelization of streams by

the Army Corps of Engineers and clear-cuing of south-

ern forests by the mammoth forest products companieswere the issues at the top of the local environmental

agenda of the day. As a young zoology grad student,

the issues seemed large but surmountable in the springof 1970. Fixing them would just take time.

Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin was the founder

of Earth Day. It took him almost a decade to nd a wayto li the declining state of the planets health into the

political radar; most of his political colleagues would

have none of it. But in the late six-ties, the youth of those times took

up the banner, because they cameto see their futures as much im-

pacted by the environmental fate

of the Earth as by the political fateof Southeast Asia.

Only a few years had passed sinceRachel Carson rst sounded the

alarm that yes, we could foul our

own nest, and had already done

so. Our air and water were making

us sick, as well as bringing about

the decline of many of the animal

species with which we share the

planet. That the products of mans industry and com-

merce had accumulated to such a degree as to alter the

balance of nature was a new and startling alarm, but

not so many were listening back then.Flash forward: Earth Day, April 22, 2007.

I wont bother giving you the numbers that measure

thirty seven years of world-wide population growth;

energy and resource use per capita; the number of ex-

tinct species and disappearing habitats; and the rise in

atmospheric greenhouse gases and elevated air and seatemperatures.

Suce it to say that the planet-wide problems we face

today fall far higher on the scale of urgency than any-

thing looming just ahead of us on that rst Earth Day

less than forty years ago. The specter of a rapidly warm-ing planet overshadows every lesser concern we mighthave. And some still arent listening.

Working to protect particular species and habitats or airand water quality in our cities becomes mootlike rear-

ranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The ship must

stay aoat. This Earth Day, we acknowledge that it cansink. And we dont have so much time.

Ill be bold and assume that thirty seven years of planet-

watching earns me one stand in the bully pulpit. From

this one citizens perspective, four things must happenMaking the rubber meet the road is quite another mat-

ter, and these are complex is-

sues we must be talking aboutin Floyds meeting places,

churches, and organizations.

1. We must take individual re-

sponsibility for being carefully

conscious of our family and

community environmentafootprint and reduce it. This

will require over the coming

decades that we restructure

our households, municipali-

ties and economies of goods

and services on a more local

and self-sucient scale. Floyd

can be exemplary in this transition, and many are al-

ready moving in this direction. Have you visited the

Sustainable Living Education Center at the Jacksonville

Center lately?

2. We must insist that eciency and conservation by

industry and commerce play a much stronger role than

they have thus far in CO2 abatement. Energy producedby 600 new coal-burning plants already planned for

could be saved (and that much CO2 avoided) by changes in air-conditioning and improved building insulation

eciency alone. What are we waiting for? hp://urlteacom/3ab

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3. We must not become complacent by thinking that our

individual conservation or lifestyle changes alone will

fully solve the larger problem. Lets insist that interna-

tional governmentsespecially including our own andstarting nowshi away from carbon-based industry,

commerce and transportation. Simply using less of the

same toxin will still, over time, poison the planetand

this, particularly as China and India grow to match the

US as per capita en-ergy consumers.

4. We must nd a

just way to prevent

those who producethe least green-

house gases from

suering the most.And governments

would do well to be

proactivein plac-es like Bangladesh,

for instanceto

reduce the unprec-

edented refugee crisis likely when tens of millions lack

water once provided by Himalayan glaciers. We must

channel our national budgets towards a new kind of

defense that includes mitigation of climate change im-

pact here and abroad, even while we drastically reduceproduction of greenhouse gases.

No maer what we do in the short run, climate change

impacts on humanity are likely to be large in the com-

ing century, even here in remote Floyd County. Copingwith this unprecedented degree of change will require a

whole new way of thinking about our relationship withthe planet and each other. Lets renew our commitmentto these goals this Earth Day, and move quickly towardan Earth Decade.

And while Im hoping, perhaps we could come to see

THIS ISSUE as the common enemy, not other nationswith whom we share this shrinking planet. Were all of

us on the very same boat.

Fred First / April 2007

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