OPINION & EDITORIAL
Earth Day nice yet ineffective holiday
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by Sean Kittridge
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
By the time you read this, Earth Day will have come and gone. Like the Edmund Fitzgerald, it has disappeared into a vast lake of lesser holidays, sharing space with Flag Day, Columbus Day and my birthday. But it’s difficult to chart exactly what Earth Day managed to accomplish.
Chances are that when I wake up tomorrow, I won’t notice any great change. Cars will still pollute, water will still be wasted, and seagulls will still probably choke on those six-pack soda rings that only seem to exist on beaches. Is it possible that maybe an entire day devoted to the Earth is not enough? Hanukkah gets eight crazy nights, and black history gets an entire month albeit the shortest on our calendar. Maybe it’s time to abandon this whole Earth “Day” idea, after all.
The last time Earth Day mattered to most of us was somewhere around third grade. For some reason, Earth Day is shoved down our gullets during the younger years and slowly abandoned with age. Maybe it’s because you can’t get away with spending an afternoon in a college class eating snacks outside and planting seeds, but there are plenty of mature alternatives to singing “Johnny Appleseed,” many of which would receive a plug right here were it not a day too late.
But the stigma left behind, this idea that Earth Day is nothing more than kids with garbage bags picking up trash on the side of the road is a detriment. First, it reminds too many people of another dreaded day: DUI Community Service Day. But more than that, it makes Earth Day feel like a chore. Preserving the environment is not something we can simply work at one day out of the year; it is a continued process, and no matter how many people cleaned up trash yesterday, if they don’t continue to work for all 364 non-Earth Days, we’re not really helping.
It’s fair to suggest Earth Day is more of an awareness event, highlighting a constant need to keep Mother Earth happy, instead of a one-day stand. But if this is the case, it does a pretty poor job of keeping people aware.
This year, Earth Day was on a Tuesday, and it’s hard to think of a more unappealing combination. If we’re smart enough to figure out that Jesus made his comeback on a Sunday, we can probably put Earth Day on a Saturday. This way, it can be the focal point of a person’s day, instead of merely an afterthought. We could even go so far as to close the post office and make Earth Day a major league holiday, but I guess they do have a tendency to devolve into shopping sales and long weekends at the cabin.
Earth Day is not just a day of reflection, it is a day of active participation, and this makes it difficult to package in a 24-hour time period.
The solution, like so many real issues in this real world, is vague and much easier said than done. Earth Day should be seen as a necessary evil, as any event focused on raising awareness is only a byproduct of an initial lack of concern. It’s easy to say we need to “do more,” but there are too many people who don’t care about litter or their Hummer’s gas mileage to make that a feasible way out.
The only real way to see change is to force it. By putting more fuel-efficient buses on the streets and working to shut down coal plants, we are imposing compassion for our surroundings, not suggesting it. We live in a country founded on choices, but we live on a planet that is much less forgiving. While we can wean our dependency from certain commodities, we cannot afford to strain our relationship with the environment.
Earth Day is like your parents’ anniversary: It’s stupid, and the only people who care about it are the ones who were already involved in the situation. But Earth is the universal parent, and even though it might not be paying for college, we still have a responsibility to care for it.
Sean Kittridge (kittridge@wisc.edu) is a sophomore majoring in journalism.
Anonymous (April 23, 2008 @ 7:17am):
My idea of Earth Day: sitting outside on the Terrace with a beer and recycling the plastic cup when I'm done.
Anonymous (April 23, 2008 @ 9:18am):
Everyday is Earth Day. We only got one planet, y'all.
Anonymous (April 23, 2008 @ 11:45am):
The Edmund Fitgerald sunk in holidays? I guess I never heard that part of the story.
Xoff (April 23, 2008 @ 4:24pm):
The original goal of Earth Day, as envisioned by its founder Gaylord Nelson in 1870, was to put the environment onto the national political agenda. It accomplished that long ago. This year, Earth Day Network says a billion people took part in worldwide events focused on the environment.
The 10 years after the first Earth Day were known as the Environmental Decade, and between 1970 and 1980, 28 major pieces of environmental legislation became law -- more than had been enacted in the entire history of the country before 1970.
But the real genius of Earth Day is that it has taken root in the schools, at all levels, where it blossoms every spring without the need for outside nurturance or cultivation.
The result is that we have a generation of young people who have grown up with what Nelson called an environmental ethic -- an understanding that we have responsiblity for the planet.
That's the real legacy of Earth Day and of Gaylord Nelson.
Anonymous (April 23, 2008 @ 5:15pm):
WTF Edmund Fitzgerald.
The first thing the school of journalism must teach is how every article needs to start with a quirk.
Way to not be cookie cutter.
Anonymous (April 23, 2008 @ 9:07pm):
"working to shut down coal plants"
Wait, those coal plants may be the one thing delaying another ice age! I think an ice age would much worse than any global warming scenario, at least for me.
***
The bleak truth is that, under normal conditions, most of North America and Europe are buried under about 1.5km of ice. This bitterly frigid climate is interrupted occasionally by brief warm interglacials, typically lasting less than 10,000 years.
The interglacial we have enjoyed throughout recorded human history, called the Holocene, began 11,000 years ago, so the ice is overdue. We also know that glaciation can occur quickly: the required decline in global temperature is about 12C and it can happen in 20 years.
The next descent into an ice age is inevitable but may not happen for another 1000 years. On the other hand, it must be noted that the cooling in 2007 was even faster than in typical glacial transitions. If it continued for 20 years, the temperature would be 14C cooler in 2027.
By then, most of the advanced nations would have ceased to exist, vanishing under the ice, and the rest of the world would be faced with a catastrophe beyond imagining.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23583376-7583,00.html
Anonymous (April 23, 2008 @ 9:09pm):
I think an ice age would much worse than any global warming scenario, at least for me.
***
The bleak truth is that, under normal conditions, most of North America and Europe are buried under about 1.5km of ice. This bitterly frigid climate is interrupted occasionally by brief warm interglacials, typically lasting less than 10,000 years.
The interglacial we have enjoyed throughout recorded human history, called the Holocene, began 11,000 years ago, so the ice is overdue. We also know that glaciation can occur quickly: the required decline in global temperature is about 12C and it can happen in 20 years.
The next descent into an ice age is inevitable but may not happen for another 1000 years. On the other hand, it must be noted that the cooling in 2007 was even faster than in typical glacial transitions. If it continued for 20 years, the temperature would be 14C cooler in 2027.
By then, most of the advanced nations would have ceased to exist, vanishing under the ice, and the rest of the world would be faced with a catastrophe beyond imagining.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23583376-7583,00.html
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