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As Earth Day events have been cancelled in the Virgin Islands and around the world, can we find other ways to acknowledge this historic anniversary?
Maybe a good start would be
to review what Earth Day was originally about, and consider what has changed over
the past 50 years.
The
idea of a national mobilization day to protect the earth came from Senator
Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, in response to uncontrolled pollution from power
plant emissions, industrial wastes, sewage runoff, oil spills and pesticides.
In
January 1969, about 3 million gallons of crude oil was released off the coast
of Santa Barbara, California, leaving an oil slick that spread over 35 miles.
People across the country were shocked to see photos of thousands of birds and
fish smothered in oil. The damage resulted from inadequate safety precautions by an oil
drilling company. An explosion cracked the sea floor, and the flow of crude oil
went on for over a month.
Another
dramatic incident in June 1969 also captured the nation’s attention. The
Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio, caught fire, with flames shooting up a
hundred feet into the sky. What kind of river catches fire? The Cuyahoga, which
empties into Lake Erie, was heavily polluted by industrial waste from
manufacturing plants.
On
April 22, 1970, about 20 million Americans (close to ten percent of the
population then) participated in the first Earth Day. The event sparked an
organized public environmental movement in the country, and by July 1970
President Nixon had proposed the formation of the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency. In December 1970, Congress passed the Clean Air Act, and the Clean
Water Act was added in 1972.
So
Earth Day was a great success, right?
Well,
the environmental movement was strongly countered by industrial pushback. Over
the past 50 years, there have been continued tensions between demands for
unfettered economic development and efforts to maintain and expand
environmental protections.
I
was working as a lawyer at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1980
when President Reagan was elected. He promised to shrink government bureaucracy
and free American businesses from what he viewed as unnecessary and burdensome
regulations – especially environmental regulations. The agency was seriously weakened
as a result.
Still,
over time, national air and water pollution levels were brought down
considerably.
Then
in the 1990s a new global environmental threat came into focus. Scientists
warned that the earth’s atmosphere was in danger of overheating due to the
accumulation of carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases released by power
plants, motor vehicles and industrial production processes. They
explained that these ‘greenhouse gases’ trap heat near the earth’s surface, and
that increasingly warmer temperatures would lead to global climate disruption,
including droughts, fires, flooding, and more intense storms.
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| Many trees were blown over in the Virgin Islands during Hurricane Irma in 2017. |
Earth
Day took on a new significance as global greenhouse gas emission concerns began
to overshadow local and national pollution problems.
In
1992, I was involved with the preparations for an international ‘Earth Summit’
organized by the United Nations, which resulted in several critical
environmental agreements. One of them was the Framework Convention on Climate
Change, which was agreed to by all countries, including the United States. It
was signed by President Bush, Sr. and ratified by the U.S. Senate.
However,
the United States has not supported many of the subsequent international
initiatives designed to prevent or reduce the predicted damage to the earth’s
climate. Industries that would be negatively affected by regulations to limit
greenhouse gas emissions (like fossil fuel companies) have argued that the
economic costs and disruptions would be too extreme. Meanwhile, some of the
predicted effects from climate change are already being seen in many parts of
the world.
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This
year the organizers of Earth Day hoped for another historic moment when citizens
everywhere would rise up to call for greater creativity, bravery and action on
averting a catastrophic climate crisis.
Ironically,
today the world is, in fact, bound together for a shared historic moment, as
the coronavirus pandemic has completely disrupted business-as-usual in
unimaginable ways, and most of us are confined to our homes.
Yet
while we are concentrating on the current health threats, this crisis does
provide us with an unexpected opportunity to rethink our lives and priorities.
I was
preparing for Earth Day this year by raising tree seedlings to be distributed
through a project organized by the Friends of the Virgin Islands National Park.
The idea was to help people who lost trees (and maybe also houses) to be able
to do some replanting. Since the pandemic, I have also started planting
vegetables for a quarantine garden.
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| Sugar apple tree seedlings for a planned Earth Day 2020 replanting project. |
Germinating
seeds and nurturing small sprouts requires patience as well as vigilance. I
have had to protect them from deer and iguanas, and have been amazed by all the
types of damaging insects they attract. Successfully producing food is actually
quite miraculous, and cannot be taken for granted.
Although
this may not be the right moment for mass mobilization gatherings to demand
action on climate change, there are many online ways we can support climate
protection and local conservation projects. Meanwhile, those of us lucky enough
to be safe in our homes can reflect on how closely all of us on the earth are
linked to each other, and how dependent we are on a healthy, functioning planet
for our food and other survival needs.
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