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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 gred."
~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
Earth Day is kind of a two-edged sword in a sense.
Yes, in part, it is, or should be, a positive remembrance of just how grateful we all should be to live on a planet that sustains our lives. Mother Earth provides for us on so many levels, with air to breaths, with food and water to sustain us, with sunlight through an atmosphere that protects us, with space to move around in, and with natural beauty to inspire us.
However, Earth Day should also be a day where we remember our responsibility to our Mother Earth, and recalling the follies of the not so distant past. We should remember all of the ravages that human activity undeniably caused, including the completely altered landscape, the introduction of foreign species to new lands (the most glaring example that I can think of would be rabbits in Australia, although constrictors in Florida are rapidly gaining), the unnatural disasters, from Chernobyl to Fukushima, from the Exxon Valdez to the Gulf Coast, and from Bhopal to Love Canal. We should remember the folly of our assumption that the Earth could sustain us no matter what we do, and no matter how much damage we inflict, or garbage we dump within the bowels of the Earth.
Yes, Earth Day is a time when we should be aware of the damage that we do on an every day basis in industrialized countries with our first world comforts, and try to curb these a bit. If there is ever to be a time when we make a conscious effort to try and minimize our own impact, this is the day to do it. To think of how we might drive less, or at least make sure that we are not systematically commuting to work alone, use less water, produce less garbage, recycle more, reduce our energy consumption, and so on. This is the day that we should think about the choices that we make with the products that we buy to make our grass perfectly green and immaculate, when we think about the impact that getting that value meal from McDonald's or Burger King or Wendy's and how the clearing of forests to produce grazing land for cattle to produce all of that cheap beef truly impacts the environment. This is the day when we make a point of not simply tossing our trash from the car window, never to give that candy wrapper or coffee mug another thought, as it finds it's home among the other litter lining our roadways.
There really are a lot of things that we tend not to think about on a regular basis, although we should think about these things, certainly far more than we do.
Many people by this point would roll their eyes, and label anyone making these kinds of arguments a "tree hugger" or a "bleeding heart" or, in the old days, an "environmental wacko". But we need to keep in mind just how wonderfully this world has provided for us, truly earning the title of "Mother Earth".
I have mentioned this numerous times by now, but it bears repeating: the best thing that we can do is stay informed and keep positive. In the fact of enormous skepticism and extremely cynical opposition, we cannot sink down to that level and make a mockery of this issue. The stakes are just too high.
How high?
Well, here is a reminder of just what we are facing when it comes to ecological disasters, and what unchecked human activity and greed can produce if allowed to go unchallenged.
Here is a list of the most radioactive places on the planet. The most famous of them, of course, would be Chernobyl and Fukoshima. But they are not the only ones.
Watch the video, and you'll get the idea of some of the damaging things that humans have done. When you add that up to every industrialized society in the world, and then every nation striving to be more industrialized and modern, These serve as a warning, as what might happen, if we are not careful.
What's The Most Radioactive Place On Earth? April 1, 2015
