It's Earth Day🌎
50 years ago, the first Earth Day was organized to call for greater protections for our planet in the face of devastating oil spills, increasing water and air pollution, the impact of toxic pesticides among any other pressing issues.
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Here we stand a half century later facing the consequences of not having mobilized sufficient willpower nor effective strategies for arresting and reversing those same issues. As a result, we are witnessing the havoc wrought by climate change and mass extinction events. We are being pummeled by a pathogen born of our infringement into nature and exploitation of it and of its creatures. 🍃
We celebrate the wonder and beauty of our earth, but those celebrations are short-lived when the next wave of bad news about our polluted rivers, the disappearing animals on land and sea, the famine faced by millions in other countries, hits our news feed.
We are suffering the consequences of not valuing our planet enough, of not valuing the animals that inhabit it as worthy of living their lives without interference from us, of believing we have the right to plunder and destroy ecosystems as we see fit.
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The challenges are many but we must take action and we must pay attention.
Here in the United States our current administration has made it a priority to roll back environmental protections to benefit the oil, gas, mining and animal agriculture industries. The effects are loss of public lands and polluted rivers, lakes and air that threaten the health of the people and wildlife that live in those area. It has taken aim at the Endangered Species Act and other wildlife protections. It has relinquished any pretense of concern for protections of the oceans or animals that live in it or the animals hunted by its wealthy donors and benefactors.
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