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The old button from the Environmental Club days which I just happened to find on Earth Day! It is a little beat up (particularly the ends of the ribbon), but no worse for the wear, I think. And it is one of the few items that I have left from those days, so it carries a lot of great memories for me! Nothing Changes Until You Do!
Here is a picture of a very similar logo, with the same message, that was on the t-shirt that I purchased from the BCC Environmental Club and, if memory serves me correctly, may even have helped to make. There were a few projects like that which club members, myself included, were regularly involved with. It has been so long, however, that I no longer recall specifically if I actually helped to make these or not, although I do believe so, since I remember seeing the process of the t-shirts being dyed. In any case, I loved this t-shirt, and have kept it ever since, even if I do not regularly wear it. Since it was part of my experience with the BCC Environmental Club days, as well as more generally having an environmental theme, it seemed appropriate to share it here.
"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed."
~Mahatma Gandhi
"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."
~John F. Kennedy
"The earth does not belong to man. Man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites one family. Man did not weave the web of life. He is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself."
- Native American Philosophy (most often attributed to Chief Seattle)
“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”
~ Chief Si’ahl (Seattle)
“Now polluters are looked upon as ordinary Joes just doing their jobs. In the future, they will be looked upon as swine”
~ Kurt Vonnegut
Today is officially Earth Day.
For some reason, this seems to be a bit of a controversial holiday. It really seems like taking care of the Earth, being good custodians and not turning a blind eye to mass pollution and the effects of it has somehow turned into a very political hot button issue. Some people will deny that the Earth has been impacted on any significant level at all by human activity, even though the face of the planet itself has been greatly altered in many areas of the world. Fly over much of Europe or over cast farmlands in North America, and you will see shapes that are obviously not natural. I have not been to many other regions around the world, yet it is difficult to imagine that it is radically different there, either.
We see people denying that human activity is actually having a detrimental impact. We see these people mocking the science behind climate change, even while we are regularly seeing stunning “once in a lifetime” weather events or the awful carnage from yet another “storm of the century” time and time again. As I write this, the KwaZulu Natal region in South Africa saw five months worth of rain fall in a span of three days, unexpectedly. There were floods and mudslides that wrought incredible destruction. Over 300 people died, and the death toll continues to mount. There was massive destruction to parts of the port city, including storage containers and highways and roadways completely torn apart because of the rain. The port itself – the largest on the entire African continent – was forced to close.
Maybe, it can be argued, things like this just happen. They have always happened, after all, right? Natural disasters have always been, and will always happen, and they will be destructive. But these are isolated incidents, and not necessarily indicative of some kind of awful environmental impact due to human activity, right?
Perhaps. Except that those same people who so easily and quickly (and I might suggest, unthinkingly) dismiss the science of climate change never seem to see the forest. They just look at the individual trees, and we get bogged down in the details of these, and how this or that particular instance was simply a natural disaster, like any other.
Yet paradoxically, when there is a single cold day, these same people will almost yell “checkmate!” and take this single event as proof that the “global warming theory” or “climate change” is one huge conspiracy theory. After all, they seem to be saying, how can the global warming theory be real if it is so cold outside? And this level of thinking is not just restricted to regular people. Indeed, Jim Inhoffe, a Senator with some serious influence in Washington, once brought in a snowball from outside as proof that climate change surely could not be real. Because again, if it is called “global warming,” then surely the fact that we still get cold weather and snow and ice proves that the theory is BS, right?
Of course, the problem with this thinking is that they are forever looking for that “ah-ha! I got you now!” moment, and not taking all of the science in and examining it objectively. They can explain away one enormous storm or two, and they wind up dismissing pretty much every seeming weather event in this way. But if you listen to them, you will miss the general trend, which confirms, rather than disproves, what scientists have long been warning about: that the weather is growing more extreme. That “global warming” is apparently a bad term for it, because people who cannot be referred to as anything but science illiterates cannot understand that this does not mean that the entire world – every part of that world – must surely be getting warmer and warmer all of the time, every single day, without seasonal or regional variations.
Today marks the 52nd anniversary of Earth Day. I try to make a point of taking my son out on a hike on this day, and of having some small talk, at least, about the importance of being aware of our Earth, and our belonging to the wider community of life.
For the past two years, this day was seriously limited because of the pandemic. The shut down, which was a lot more all-encompassing than it feels like we have had since. I had reflected on the first Earth Day that I can actively remember. Here were my thoughts at the time, which encompassed a little bit of my own personal history with Earth Day. It begins with the first Earth Day that I can specifically remember:
That would be in 1990, and it was a hot one. It fell on a weekend, and my family had gone to see a soccer game, of all things. The New Jersey Eagles, who hosted Orlando. Both teams are now defunct, as is that soccer league. We were in Jersey City, and it was very sunny, so I wound up with a sunburn. Yet, I remember that it felt fun, looking at the Manhattan skyline, enjoying the outdoors, and hearing radio commentators talk about Earth Day, which was still new to me. By contrast, this morning was just above freezing - barely - and while it has been sunny all day, it is also windy and cool. Actually, kind of nice weather for Earth Day.
Yes, we already had the strangest, quietest St. Patrick’s Day that anyone can remember, and then we had a similarly, almost eerily quiet Easter weekend. Now, we have Earth Day, which often has all sorts of events, concerts and other such things, surrounding it. Hell, I once even organized such an event in my capacity as the President of the Environmental Club for Bergen Community College, which proved extremely stressful, frankly.
This year, of course, everything is different. Some have suggested that this current crisis, with the pandemic, may be Mother Nature's way of giving us human beings one last warning. Change your ways, she might be saying, or I will change them for you. And that is no idle threat. Indeed, I have mentioned the idea that we seem to be almost preparing for some kind of apocalypse as a society. Many, if not most, of the scenarios, include either huge natural disasters, or indeed, man-made disasters, which seems to be our own collectively expressed acknowledgement that we know that what we are doing on this planet, and the manner in which we are conducting ourselves as a modern society, lacks wisdom and, frankly, sustainability.
Perhaps now, these apocalyptic visions will begin to feel more real. After all, we have at least actually seen and tasted just a little of what the world might feel like after something truly huge has happened. We still are seeing and experiencing it almost every day, when streets and highways normally choked with traffic now stand virtually empty. We see usually bustling city streets now empty, famous landmarks that attract visitors virtually around the calendar now regularly empty and devoid of people. There is little air travel, and cruise ships are at dock, with some questioning how well these will survive the current crisis.
Yet, here is one silver lining, and to me, it is not a minor one: the air is cleaner than it has been in many decades. In Los Angeles, a city known for smog from pollution, the air has not been so clean in many decades. Indeed, many people have never seen or felt the air as clean as it is now. The same is true in India, particularly in the cities, where the pollution and smog had gotten so bad, that it was literally dangerous to people's health. Now, the skies have cleared, and the real sky color can actually be seen. There are rivers which are notoriously polluted in India, which are now allegedly clean enough to drink again.
Is Mother Nature trying to tell us something? Maybe the idea that there is some not so hidden message in all of this really is not so ridiculous, after all.
Also, there is irony in the fact that despite the cleaner air, there are more people wearing face masks - including yours truly - than ever before. We can visibly see the pollution in some places, particularly in cities in countries like China and India, as well as here in the United States, particularly in the western half or so, yet we rush out and get masks to protect ourselves against an invisible enemy. That seems to say something about the human mind, does it not?
Yes, we already had the strangest, quietest St. Patrick’s Day that anyone can remember, and then we had a similarly, almost eerily quiet Easter weekend. Now, we have Earth Day, which often has all sorts of events, concerts and other such things, surrounding it. Hell, I once even organized such an event in my capacity as the President of the Environmental Club for Bergen Community College, which proved extremely stressful, frankly.
This year, of course, everything is different. Some have suggested that this current crisis, with the pandemic, may be Mother Nature's way of giving us human beings one last warning. Change your ways, she might be saying, or I will change them for you. And that is no idle threat. Indeed, I have mentioned the idea that we seem to be almost preparing for some kind of apocalypse as a society. Many, if not most, of the scenarios, include either huge natural disasters, or indeed, man-made disasters, which seems to be our own collectively expressed acknowledgement that we know that what we are doing on this planet, and the manner in which we are conducting ourselves as a modern society, lacks wisdom and, frankly, sustainability.
Perhaps now, these apocalyptic visions will begin to feel more real. After all, we have at least actually seen and tasted just a little of what the world might feel like after something truly huge has happened. We still are seeing and experiencing it almost every day, when streets and highways normally choked with traffic now stand virtually empty. We see usually bustling city streets now empty, famous landmarks that attract visitors virtually around the calendar now regularly empty and devoid of people. There is little air travel, and cruise ships are at dock, with some questioning how well these will survive the current crisis.
Yet, here is one silver lining, and to me, it is not a minor one: the air is cleaner than it has been in many decades. In Los Angeles, a city known for smog from pollution, the air has not been so clean in many decades. Indeed, many people have never seen or felt the air as clean as it is now. The same is true in India, particularly in the cities, where the pollution and smog had gotten so bad, that it was literally dangerous to people's health. Now, the skies have cleared, and the real sky color can actually be seen. There are rivers which are notoriously polluted in India, which are now allegedly clean enough to drink again.
Is Mother Nature trying to tell us something? Maybe the idea that there is some not so hidden message in all of this really is not so ridiculous, after all.
Also, there is irony in the fact that despite the cleaner air, there are more people wearing face masks - including yours truly - than ever before. We can visibly see the pollution in some places, particularly in cities in countries like China and India, as well as here in the United States, particularly in the western half or so, yet we rush out and get masks to protect ourselves against an invisible enemy. That seems to say something about the human mind, does it not?
This is one of my favorite holidays, even though this also happens to be one of the youngest and, thus, one with some of the least amount of recognition and traditions, at least for now. Hopefully, someday, people might actually take it more seriously, and at least begin to appreciate what this Mother Earth of ours offers us.
Nothing short of life itself.
Yet, for now, this sentiment is more often met with mockery, at least in contemporary American culture. It is often viewed with serious skepticism and, frankly, often times mockery.
It should not be. It was originally designed to make us aware of the damage that we are doing to our world through our notions of progress. Pumping junk into air and the seas and the land, so that we can enjoy more luxuries than ever before. That is what passes for progress these days.
There was a time when we used to actually believe that we were building a better world, something worth sacrificing for. It seems these days that we all know that we should approach any sense of people trying to build for a better world with caution. There have been so many failed ideas, not to mention outright scams and frauds, to say nothing of the disasters that have come of these. The kind of world that we have created has proven to be disastrous on many levels. Indeed, there is nothing noble about it, no great sentiments towards humanity in general. Just selfishness.
Recently, I saw a quote which, I feel, goes a long way towards explaining just what the crisis we are facing is. You see, when I was growing up, and growing more aware of the issues that made me an environmentalist, it felt more or less simple, perhaps largely due to naiveté. Back then, we felt that there should be goals, to try and reduce pollution. Cut carbon emissions, try and track and systematically reduce gases that contribute to global warming, or climate change. Indeed, though, while progress is made here and there, it feels like we trend towards regression, in a classic case of taking one step forward, and two steps back. The current president pulled the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord, as modest as those changes were, because he felt that his country had gotten a raw deal. For now, it remains the only country that has rejected the accord on the grounds of skepticism regarding the science. Clearly, if Trump cared enough to even try and understand the science, or if he got past his own ego and greed to recognize the danger, he might - might - give some pause for thought about the ramifications of his actions. After all, no country has traditionally contributed more harmful greenhouse gases and pollution than the good ol' U. S. of A., right?
Yet, perhaps in part because of Trump's outlandishness and indifference to world opinion - his decision to pull the country out of the Paris Accord was universally condemned and remains strongly unpopular - other world leaders have begun to flirt with similar moves. That includes in particular Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who has had similar expressions of doubt regarding climate change and environmentalism. Indeed if there is one area of the world most synonymous with the climate change crisis traditionally, it would be in Brazil, particularly in the north, in the Amazon rainforest, which is continually threatened. Indeed, much of it has already been destroyed, laid waste to make room for farms that will produce cheap beef. And Bolsonaro has actively attempted to hasten the destruction of the rainforest, which often are described as the "lungs of the world," almost literally.
The old saying about how the more things change, the more they stay the same comes to mind. We keep repeating the same mistakes, which brings to mind another saying, about how a mistake made repetitively can no longer be viewed as a mistake, but rather, a choice. And as the ancient knight from that old Indiana Jones movie might have stated, we have collectively chosen poorly. We only recently began to experience the painful death throes from our choice.
Which brings me again to that quote mentioned earlier, which put in perspective just what we are up against. I mentioned naiveté earlier, because indeed, we environmentalists seemed to collectively believe that once the facts become clear, once people begin to have all of the scientific data and are made aware of the issues, that an understanding will dawn, and that collectively, humanity will do what it needs to do to save itself. But the science is out there, has been out there now for some time. We have even seen consistently rising global temperatures, and more severe storms and natural disasters in greater number and greater severity then ever before. Yet, many remain willfully ignorant, while others, particularly the powerful who serve to personally benefit from continuing what we are doing as a society, actively inject pseudo-scientific doubts to try and muddy the waters and cast doubt on scientific consensus, even when there actually is no real scientific debate. Given all of that, it should be easy to understand why this quote moved me as both piercing and particularly alarming. It is from American scientific lawyer and expert on climate change, James Gustave Speth:
I used to think the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change.
I thought that with 30 years of good science we could address these problems, but I was wrong.
The top environmental problems are selifshness, greed and apathy, and to deal with those we need a spiritual and cultural transformation.
And we scientists don’t know how to do that.”
- James Gustave Speth
Recently, I saw a quote which, I feel, goes a long way towards explaining just what the crisis we are facing is. You see, when I was growing up, and growing more aware of the issues that made me an environmentalist, it felt more or less simple, perhaps largely due to naiveté. Back then, we felt that there should be goals, to try and reduce pollution. Cut carbon emissions, try and track and systematically reduce gases that contribute to global warming, or climate change. Indeed, though, while progress is made here and there, it feels like we trend towards regression, in a classic case of taking one step forward, and two steps back. The current president pulled the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord, as modest as those changes were, because he felt that his country had gotten a raw deal. For now, it remains the only country that has rejected the accord on the grounds of skepticism regarding the science. Clearly, if Trump cared enough to even try and understand the science, or if he got past his own ego and greed to recognize the danger, he might - might - give some pause for thought about the ramifications of his actions. After all, no country has traditionally contributed more harmful greenhouse gases and pollution than the good ol' U. S. of A., right?
Yet, perhaps in part because of Trump's outlandishness and indifference to world opinion - his decision to pull the country out of the Paris Accord was universally condemned and remains strongly unpopular - other world leaders have begun to flirt with similar moves. That includes in particular Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who has had similar expressions of doubt regarding climate change and environmentalism. Indeed if there is one area of the world most synonymous with the climate change crisis traditionally, it would be in Brazil, particularly in the north, in the Amazon rainforest, which is continually threatened. Indeed, much of it has already been destroyed, laid waste to make room for farms that will produce cheap beef. And Bolsonaro has actively attempted to hasten the destruction of the rainforest, which often are described as the "lungs of the world," almost literally.
The old saying about how the more things change, the more they stay the same comes to mind. We keep repeating the same mistakes, which brings to mind another saying, about how a mistake made repetitively can no longer be viewed as a mistake, but rather, a choice. And as the ancient knight from that old Indiana Jones movie might have stated, we have collectively chosen poorly. We only recently began to experience the painful death throes from our choice.
Which brings me again to that quote mentioned earlier, which put in perspective just what we are up against. I mentioned naiveté earlier, because indeed, we environmentalists seemed to collectively believe that once the facts become clear, once people begin to have all of the scientific data and are made aware of the issues, that an understanding will dawn, and that collectively, humanity will do what it needs to do to save itself. But the science is out there, has been out there now for some time. We have even seen consistently rising global temperatures, and more severe storms and natural disasters in greater number and greater severity then ever before. Yet, many remain willfully ignorant, while others, particularly the powerful who serve to personally benefit from continuing what we are doing as a society, actively inject pseudo-scientific doubts to try and muddy the waters and cast doubt on scientific consensus, even when there actually is no real scientific debate. Given all of that, it should be easy to understand why this quote moved me as both piercing and particularly alarming. It is from American scientific lawyer and expert on climate change, James Gustave Speth:
I used to think the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change.
I thought that with 30 years of good science we could address these problems, but I was wrong.
The top environmental problems are selifshness, greed and apathy, and to deal with those we need a spiritual and cultural transformation.
And we scientists don’t know how to do that.”
- James Gustave Speth
That truly does feel like it sums up the current environmental crisis that we now face, in a world where facts just simply do not seem to matter to far too many people, who allow themselves the conceit of believing only what they want to believe. Which perhaps explains why the aforementioned naiveté on the part of environmentalists proved so ineffectual. Evil appears to be very real, and there is just no converting people who do not mean well. That is especially true when so many of those people, like the man in the Oval Office presently, control so much of what is conveyed and oft-repeated in the major news media.
Am I actually calling the current President of the United States, Donald Trump, evil?
Yes, actually. I am. But that is another discussion. And while he is clearly a part of the problem, this is bigger than him. Far bigger.
Indeed, that is why so many people who approach seeming well-meaning, or even noble ideas, and are trying to embrace them and correct past mistakes are viewed with such extreme skepticism. Almost everyone seems to need to develop a sense of skepticism or, at best, measured optimism, when it comes to bigger ideas these days.
Am I actually calling the current President of the United States, Donald Trump, evil?
Yes, actually. I am. But that is another discussion. And while he is clearly a part of the problem, this is bigger than him. Far bigger.
Indeed, that is why so many people who approach seeming well-meaning, or even noble ideas, and are trying to embrace them and correct past mistakes are viewed with such extreme skepticism. Almost everyone seems to need to develop a sense of skepticism or, at best, measured optimism, when it comes to bigger ideas these days.
Clearly, many people need to work a little better at that. After all, look at who is currently in the Oval Office here in the United States. The highest office in the land, and probably the most powerful office in the world, is currently occupied by a known con artist, someone who believes in drilling for oil and fracking and clearing more forests to produce more beef, so that he and millions of others in a rapidly growing population can chow down on cheap meat products, regardless of how much damage experts have revealed it does to this planet.
What does he care? He will be long gone by the time that the full impact of climate change will be felt and, even if he is somehow still around, he has his billions to ensure some measure of protection and tranquility in his life. This man is the most selfish, narcissistic individual imaginable, a megalomaniac to such a degree, that he often seems like a walking, talking, breathing parody. I still have trouble not viewing him as some kind of a joke, albeit an extremely cruel one, perhaps one that our stupid society is playing on Mother Earth.
Mother Earth deserves so much better.
Slowly but surely, these seems to be an awakening. Some people even describe this as "Woke." Increasingly, this is how to refer to people who are at least aware that there is a world out there, and that we need to be aware of others, and not merely concerned with the pursuit of our own selfish desires. There are higher purposes than simply to fixate on our own greed, and the rise of the face of greed to the White House cannot forever keep this growing conscientiousness, if you will, from rising.
Native Americans understood the urgency of having a balance with the Earth. They were mocked then, and basically killed off and/or forced to join the very society that they knew to be sick. Yet, some of their wisdom has survived, and many of us - although clearly not all of us by a long-shot - are beginning to gain awareness that they understood something, that they possessed a certain wisdom that our crass and obsessive consumer culture failed to see, much less appreciate.
Obviously, that level of skepticism towards Native American wisdom continues today.
Still, we have to continue to fight for it. Because Mother Earth deserves better than the way that we treat her. I heard somewhere recently that people - by which, I think, they meant people in western, advanced countries - only seem willing to go along with things when they clearly will get something out of it. That may indeed be true, even if it is also sad.
Yet, so be it. If that is what we have become, then it is better to accept this reality, and then try to work within it's framework, then to ignore it or pretend it is otherwise. We really cannot afford to only believe in what we want to believe in. Look at how much trouble this has gotten is into in the first place.
So, let us try and keep Earth Day as at least one sacred day, when people accept that the Earth is indeed life itself. Without the planet as we know it, there is no life. If we continue on as we are going, simply put, the strains will be too much, and life as we know it on this planet will be choked off, because our modern lifestyles are, simply put, not sustainable for any great length of time.
The threat is real. But for now, at least, so is hope. Hope that we can indeed collectively wake up on time to preserve at least the best part of what Mother Earth has blessedly provided us with: life itself. Earth Day always falls in the spring, right as the last vestiges of winter here in the northern hemisphere begin to fade, and a literal season of new life is ushered forth.
We have to begin somewhere, even if it is just one day. Let it be this day, and let what traditions have been established continue, but let new traditions begin, both for Earth Day, and more generally and completely, so that we begin to make more of a difference.
And let this be a blessed Earth Day to any and all who read this.
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