Healing Our World: On the Edge

By Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.

Earth Day 2000 - To March or to Shop?

Remember, it is forbidden to live in a town
Which has no garden or greenery
-- Kiddushin 4:12

What does the first Earth Day of the new millennium bring? Fossil fuels still produce most of our energy. Coal is still used to generate 55 percent of our electricity. Toxic wastes fill our oceans and protective legislation is slow and lacks enforcement.

What happened to the grand expectations we had at the first Earth Day, 30 years ago?

Former Wisconsin Governor and Senator Gaylord Nelson currently works with the Wilderness Society (Photo courtesy Wilderness Society)

The message was heard, and in the next few years sweeping environmental legislation was enacted including the Endangered Species Act, The Federal Clean Air Act, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Earth Day 1990 on the Washington, DC Mall (Photo courtesy Earth Day 2000)

What does Earth Day 2000 bring? Will Congress adjourn for the day to attend teach-ins. I don’t think so.

Thirty years later, I am feeling rather cynical. Earth Day 2000 is a Hallmark card holiday, a day of a few beach cleanups, marathons, educational booths, plantings, and parades. Many festivals and fairs will be held throughout the U.S. with food, exhibits and, I am sure, many opportunities to buy products to filter our poisoned air and water.

There will be a whole variety of experiences, most press releases for Earth Day events say. Except there will be few demonstrations pledging solidarity to those fighting for the cleanup of our Earth, our seas, and our skies.

Crater Lake, Oregon (Photo (c) J.A. Giuliano)

But the World Game Institute tells us that we could remove all land mines from the Earth for $2 billion, provide shelter for everyone on the planet for $21 billion, provide health care and AIDS control worldwide for $21 billion and eliminate starvation and malnutrition worldwide for $19 billion. There are many individuals in the country who could write checks for these amounts today.

The Earth Day web site (see Resources below) lists hundreds of Earth Day activities around the country. But nowhere could I find any protests or marches that marked the birth of Earth Day 30 years ago, when 20 million people said, I want a better way to live - not a better way to shop.

What will history tell of Earth Day 2000? A cynical entry in a newspaper 100 years from now might read:

On the thirtieth anniversary of Earth Day in 2000, many festivals and craft fairs were held. The street performers were good. A few beaches got cleaned up for a few hours. People went on hikes and many farm animals were petted. Yet while these cute festivals were happening, the following took place, in the United States alone on that day:

• 200,000 tons of edible food was thrown out - more than usual because of the festivals.
  
• 313 million gallons of fuel was used - a lot of it driving to the festivals - enough to drain 26 tractor-trailer trucks every minute.
  
• 18 million tons of raw materials were taken from the Earth.
  
• 6.8 billion gallons of drinking water was used to flush toilets.
  
• one million bushels of litter was thrown out of car windows.
  
• 10,000 minks were added to closets and coat racks.
  
• $200 million was spent on advertising.
  
• 100 million board feet of wood was sawed up.
  
• 250,000 tons of steel was used.
  
• 187,000 tons of paper was used - a lot of it used to print Earth Day flyers, and
  
• a shaver company made three million dollars in profit.

Also on Earth Day 2000:

• Forty percent of research and development expenditures and 60 percent of the physical scientists and engineers were devoted to developing weapons to kill everyone on Earth 67 times over.
  
• One-quarter of the adults on this planet could not read or write.
  
• One out of five people was hungry and malnourished and did not have housing.
  
• One out of every five people lacked clean drinking water.
  
• One out of every three people lacked adequate health care, and
  
• 60,000 children under the age of five worldwide died that day from bad drinking water.

There were some scattered protests, but for most of the leaders of the United States, it was just another day at the office, counting the lucrative revenue from the day.

Waterfall along the Columbia Gorge, Oregon (Photo (c) J.A. Giuliano)

Or you could take your children to the beach or the forest or the park and teach them how to notice the web of life. Why not show them how important it is to pick up trash and to tell others it is wrong when they litter?

Why not make Earth Day 2000 an opportunity to decide what kind of world you want for you and your family and the world's children in this millennium and work to make it so. To do this we need our picket signs - not our credit cards.

RESOURCES

1. Visit an Earth Day website at http://www.earthday.net/

2. For a large list of Earth Day events, visit http://planet-hawaii.com/cch/earthday/edhflink.html

3. Find out who your Congressional representatives are and e-mail them. Tell them it is time for sweeping environmental changes. If you know your Zip code, you can find them at http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html or you can search by state at http://www.webslingerz.com/jhoffman/congress-email.html. You can also find your representatives at http://congress.nw.dc.us/innovate/index.html

4. Earth Day 1998 might be a great time to get your family to watch the Diet for a New America video by Jon Robbins, possibly the most important 60 minutes you and your family and friends could watch. You can get a copy at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/6302231736/qid=955217906/sr=1-1/103-6887997-8429402

5. Visit the World Game Institute at http://www.worldgame.org/wwwproject/index.html for their amazing "What the World Wants Project" to get details on the costs and assumptions presented above. It is a remarkable resource that will open your eyes forever.

6. Changelinks is a publication that provides a calendar of activist events in the Southern California. Visit them at http://www.LABridge.com/change-links/ and find a similar calendar for your home town. Visit the Northwest Animal Rights Network at http://www.narn.org/ for animal rights activity in the Pacific Northwest.

{Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D. is a writer and the manager of Discovery Park for the City of Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation. He can be found in his new home in Seattle, looking for meaning in Earth Day. Please send your thoughts, comments, and visions to him at jackie@healingourworld.com and visit his web site at www.healingourworld.com}