Happy Earth Day. Many of us take this day or week to celebrate with festivals, drinks, bands and maybe some attention to environmental movements. But it is more than a celebration, it is a day of honor. A day when we kneel to the ground, touch the earth and give thanks to the beauty of this green world. For without her, there is no way we could exist.
She is a marvel in every way. Just the right distance to the sun - not too close, not too far. Enough water. Proper mixture of molecules in the air. Rich soils. All of this supports life...and her cycles of death and rebirth keep everything in harmony.
A few decades ago most of mainstream America was oblivious to environmental concerns. We were slurping lead gas, dumping raw sewage and waste into our waterways, and air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of "prosperity". Underneath this there was an emerging consciousness - for example Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" had made the NY times best seller list. After a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, Sentor Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin decided he wanted to help put environmental concerns front and center stage, so in 1970 channeling the anti-vietnam war protest energy of the day, the first earth day was born.
It became a national movement almost immediately. Twenty years later, it became a worldwide movement. Today, 43 years later while we are still having massive oil spills, and are probably not as far along as many of us would like to be, we've come a long way baby.
We have biodiesel, electric car stations, the Clean Water Management Act, Land Conservation initiatives, Farmer's Markets, Slow Food Culture and the permaculture movement, which is more about being regenerative rather than merely sustainable. Yes, we also have Monsanto and Exxon, a new state of garbage floating in the ocean, and fracking, but as Voltaire one said "Perfection is the enemy of good." We're hopefully making progress.
So as we honor the many, many small and large steps we as individuals and a culture have taken to become more earth aware, we also ask for you to make this day more than a mere celebration. We ask you to make a commitment to this mother that feeds, nurtures, and takes care of us and our wastes the best she can, even as we treat her as a thing rather than a being.
Commit to regeneration. Commit to taking radical acts on her behalf. Commit to taking responsibility for our use of her.
The Earth Day Network, which also calling for women to be equal partners of leaders in the new green economy, is calling for 2 billion green acts. I wonder, what will yours be?
