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LINK: ‘Note Verbale’, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Times) – 20 April 2008 Issue

On April 22, many countries around the world would celebrate Earth Day.

Earth Day is apparently observed because of the felt need to rouse environmental consciousness and the protection of the only place human beings can live in.

This very same awareness inspired former US senator of Wisconsin, Gaylord Anton Nelson, to lead teach-ins on the environment in college campuses in the late 1969 following the model of protest actions over the Vietnam War.

The success of Nelson’s campaign led his organizers of environmental teach-ins to declare April 22 as Earth Day. Some say that this date is appropriate because it is the natal day of Oscar-Emmy awards nominated actor, American Edward ‘Eddie’ Albert Heimberger, who worked for environmental causes and groups, of former US Secretary of Agriculture, Julius Sterling Morton, the founder of Arbor Day, a national tree-planting holiday in the United States, and other similar observances.

“Earth Day achieved what I had hoped for. The objective was to get a nationwide demonstration of concern for the environment so large that it would shake the political arena. It was a gamble, but it worked. An estimated 20 million people participated in peaceful demonstrations all across the country. Ten thousand grade schools and high schools, two thousand colleges, and one thousand communities were involved… That was the remarkable thing that became Earth Day”, Nelson said in one press interview.

There is another Earth Day observed yearly on March 21, which was first celebrated in the United States in 1970 and each year after that at the United Nations to bring to public attention its original purpose of “peace, justice and the care of Earth”. This idea of a universal holiday to celebrate the natural wonders of the earth was first proposed by US peace activist, John McConnell, in October 1969.

They say that the March 21 Earth Day is notable because it is on this day that the vernal equinox, or the time of every year when the sun crosses the equator resulting in a twelve hour equal distribution between night and day all over this planet.

Inarguably, there is sense to observe or celebrate Earth Day whether on April 22 or March 21. There is no sense to debate which is the appropriate date. In fact, it would be a better arrangement if people observe it everyday. After all, taking care of this planet, like taking care of one’s home, should be a constant activity and a continuing concern.

In their Internet article “Make This Earth Day Your Last!” Alex Steffen and Sarah Rich shared this view:

“The biggest problem with Earth Day is that it has become a ritual of sympathy for the idea of environmental sanity. Small steps, we’re told, ignoring the fact that most of the steps most frequently promoted (returning your bottles, bringing your own bag, turning off the water while you brush your teeth) are of such minor impact (compared to our ecological footprints) that they are essentially meaningless without larger, systemic action as well. The strategy of recycling as a gateway drug — get them hooked on it and we can move them on to harder stuff — has failed miserably. We can do better.”

“It is, essentially, the politics of gesture, little different than wearing a rubber wrist band or a pink ribbon, and, such a politics is primarily a means of raising money for large NGOs while making regular folks feel a little better about their relationship to a terribly flawed system. It’s a broken model and we can do better.”

Many would indeed find that all the current efforts to save planet earth are tokenistic, and would not change the things as they are because of the short-shortsightedness of human concerns and the lack of will to give up something that gives human comfort and convenience in the present world order.

The only consolation perhaps is that it is better to have all these initiatives at hand, no matter how trivial, to continue to serve as a universal wake-up call.

American astronaut James Arthur ‘Jim’ Lovell Jr. of Apollo 8 and 13, after looking at this planet from the vastness of space, observed:

“It gives you in an instant, just at a position 240,000 miles away from it, (an idea of) how insignificant we are, how fragile we are, and how fortunate we are to have a body that will allow us to enjoy the sky and the trees and the water … It’s something that many people take for granted when they’re born and they grow up within the environment. But they don’t realize what they have. And I didn’t till I left it.”

Hopefully, his fellow earthlings realize it soon too.

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