Come Friday, Earth Day turns 53. “Earth” is an anagram of “heart.” Which is appropriate since demonstrating our heartfelt love for the Earth ought to be on the top rung of everyone’s priority list. Earth, our home, and so far the only known place in the universe where thereare beating hearts, deserves—requires—our deepest affection. For our own sake and that of our offspring generations, every day should be treated like Earth Day. All too often, however, as shown by the seemingly relentless parade of bad environmental news, we humans don’t deliver on that.
Just a decade after the first Earth Day in 1970, along came Ronald Reagan, a president whose twisted views of something as obvious as old-growth forest preservation left environmental advocates aghast: "A tree is a tree, how many more do you need to look at?" Although expressed less moronically, he delivered similar views (as well as policies and top appointments) on public lands, pollution, the ozone hole, organic farming, global warming, advocates of renewable power sources and conservation, as well as on us laughable idealists whom he said wanted everyone to "freeze to death in the dark."
Since then, the Republican Party, which once could boast numerous elected advocates of sound environmental policy, is now brimful of lawmakers eager to demolish or at least sabotage key environmental legislation enacted in the past half-century. Carrying out their donors’ desires, they obstruct, dilute, disinform, and pretend that burning fossil fuels doesn’t kill 8 million people around the planet every year and that protecting the world’s biodiversity should never stand in the way of a new subdivision or palm oil plantation. They treat even the mention of remedies for environmental injustices as a joke. But they are who they are. Or, as Donald Trump once said about the horrific COVID-19 death toll, “It is what it is.” Given who’s in the GOP’s 2022 candidate queue for Congress, it could be a lot more of what it is come January.
Rather than focus on these connivers and know-nothings, Earth Day, this 1 day out of 365, should be a time to renew our efforts in prompting the revolution in values and attitudes needed to deal with the climate and other environmental crises being inflicted on the planet. And also a time to celebrate environmental victories. Paying homage to what we’re doing right or are trying to do right is a healthy alternative to eco-negativity, personally and politically. Yes, there is plenty yet to do, on climate most especially. Yes, some environmental successes have been undermined. But let’s divert attention away from them until another day. Acknowledging that we have already made significant progress and continue to do so in big and small ways can invigorate our hopes and boost our determination to achieve still more in the face of daunting obstacles, most particularly in the form of dark money-funded foes.