Every Day is Earth Day

It is helpful to stop for a bit and consider the status of the earth’s health. We do this on Earth Day each year. Oh, there are other times during the year we pay attention, too, but my point today is that everyday is Earth Day, or ought to be in our conscious daily living. 

Here’s a good point made by Carl Sagan:

“Anything else you’re interested in is not going to happen if you can’t breathe the air and drink the water. Don’t sit this one out. Do something. You are by accident of fate alive at an absolutely critical moment in the history of our planet.” 

Growing up a California native I learned not to waste water. It was a fact of life. And everyone in our household lived by that maxim. My parents were from Chicago and Minnesota but they respected the planet and easily learned the struggle for water when they first moved to California to build a family.  

Now living in Illinois for over 50 years, I have witnessed a people who grew up with  plentiful water from the Great Lakes, and ground water wells. Lots of water. In times of drought we curtail watering our lawns and gardens, but this is often to maintain water pressure, not conserve water supplies. As more communities in the Chicago metro area tapped Lake Michigan for their drinking water, others experienced recharged underground aquifers; droughts for well users have waned considerably. We have lots of water in the greater Midwest. So much we have a hard time thinking of shortages and waste. But we should. For the long term future of not just our region, but for the nation and planet as a whole.

Again, living in southern California we were mightily aware of air pollution. Smog was more than an inconvenience. It was hard to breathe. It created allergies and asthma. Lung diseases soared. The region tackled the problem with bans on open burning, lower emission automobiles and trucks, reduced emissions for manufacturing processes and many other tactics. Still air pollution looms in the region. And it has spread nationwide unless you live in a heavily forested area. Even farmlands are polluted by crop protecting chemicals, soil erosion and surface water drainage. All contribute to pollution of air, water and soil.  

The planet’s health is all of our business. We have to rely on ourselves to solve the problems plaguing the globe’s health. It is not up to scientists or government officials. We need to appreciate the ecology which sustains our lives. We need to find ways to partner with the earth so it and we survive, and survive well. Not just eke by! 

If we forego this advice we threaten everything else we hold dear: families, freedom, health, hopes and dreams and life itself. This is not a political platform. It is fact. 

I say the latter because there are always people who seek control, power and money when they sense a large group of people don’t like a particular message. They eventually turn the discomfort into a political issue and win votes denying the obvious. And all too often there are enough gullible people who will fall for the manipulation. But the rest of us? It is up to us to live responsibly and to create models of daily living by which we protect the planet. In time the debaters and naysayers will either get the message or be relegated to the sidelines. 

Earth is our home. Keep it healthy, tidy and pollution free. And it will serve us and our generations which follow. 

April 25, 2012