{"id":537921,"date":"2010-04-21T17:37:54","date_gmt":"2010-04-21T21:37:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/northwestvoices\/2011667353_thoughtsonearthday.html?syndication=rss"},"modified":"2010-04-21T17:37:54","modified_gmt":"2010-04-21T21:37:54","slug":"thoughts-on-earth-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/537921","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on Earth Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

What do we have to show after 40 years?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Editor, The Times:<\/p>\n

On April 22, 1970, I participated in Earth Day. The rally on the UW campus was exhilarating \u2014especially for those of us who, for a few years, had been agitating for more care of our environments.<\/p>\n

Looking back, we see that much of what we were doing then has become institutionalized, in the hands of large conservation organizations (we belong to many of them) and their effectiveness is a challenge to government and industry alike. But what is missing is the sense of personal involvement and this is felt keenly.<\/p>\n

A year or two earlier, I walked into the University District office of the Sierra Club and asked where to start. Brock Evans, then the local representative, told me that I should just pick something. I started working on the confirmation hearings of Walter Hickle, former governor of Alaska and secretary of the interior. That led to subsequent involvement in the North Cascades National Park and Alpine Lakes Wilderness, then to working for the Washington Environmental Council to rationalize the number and location of nuclear power plants in the Pacific Northwest. There were many other issues, but little or no personal effort as we wrote checks and e-mail messages instead of letters and testimony.<\/p>\n

Today, despite our successes, we confront a global ecosystem that is badly destabilized, a Puget Sound ecosystem where whales feast on plastics, clothing, rope and other junk, a world with fewer amphibians, songbirds and many species whose habitat is diminishing rapidly or has already evaporated while our own species grows exponentially. I wonder what we would call failure if this is the measure of our success.<\/p>\n

Through it all I feel a personal sense of disengagement and loss and I do not know what I can do to ease it. I want to start all over again.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Earl J. Bell, UW Professor Emeritus, Seattle<\/em><\/p>\n

Time to reflect on what we\u2019ve done to the planet<\/strong><\/p>\n

When the first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970, the air was festive \u2014and cleaner, too. The population of 3.7 billion has nearly doubled since and terms virtually unknown then now define our age: tipping points, peak oil and climate change.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, something else has grown in these four decades: Tremendous knowledge not only of how ecosystems have deteriorated worldwide, but also of their tremendous restorative capacities on which humans could build.<\/p>\n

Symbols and celebrations such as the 20th anniversary of Earth Day are times to reflect and reconnect. What would happen if the entire week of April 18-24 was designated as \u201cEarth Days,\u201d as Community Educational Television \u2014 KCET in California \u2014 has done, full with activities that acknowledge the vital and ethical connections we all have with Earth.<\/p>\n

Everyone could encourage Earth Day-related activities in places of learning throughout our community \u2014classrooms and homes, as well as outdoors. The synergies and hope that emerge could in turn move us closer to living as if every day were Earth Day.<\/p>\n

\u2014 James Loucky, Bellingham<\/em><\/p>\n

Americans\u2019 actions ironic twist to Earth Day founding<\/strong><\/p>\n

Earth Day, which set off alarm bells in 1970, has now morphed from a wake-up call into a much ballyhooed occasion to go out and pick up litter. As if our lovely, little blue dot in the universe notices.<\/p>\n

What Earth does notice is its atmosphere and oceans warming as we continue burning precious fossil fuels. Polar and glacial ice melts, oceans expand, threatening coastlines and small island countries. Deserts expand, too \u2014water shortages already threaten millions of people.<\/p>\n

Although Americans started Earth Day, we have strayed farthest from its original message. Per capita, we are still the biggest contributors to the planet\u2019s climate fever, but we have ignored warnings from the world\u2019s scientists and abdicated our leadership responsibilities.<\/p>\n

If your mother were sick, wouldn\u2019t you want to help her get well? We must convince Congress to stop polluting energy use and convert to renewable energy by increasing the price of carbon. Most straightforward is taxing the 2,000 coal-, oil- and gas-producing and -importing companies, and distributing this revenue to everyone to cover higher energy prices.<\/p>\n

Sen. Maria Cantwell\u2019s Clear Act comes closest to this model. Simpler still is the Carbon Fee and Dividend Act proposed by the Citizens Climate Lobby.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Andrea Faste, Seattle<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What do we have to show after 40 years? Editor, The Times: On April 22, 1970, I participated in Earth Day. The rally on the UW campus was exhilarating \u2014especially for those of us who, for a few years, had been agitating for more care of our environments. Looking back, we see that much of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2861,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-537921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2861"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537921\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}