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 ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in journalism.
