22nd April 2020: Golden Jubilee of World Earth Day.

22nd April 2020: Golden Jubilee of World Earth Day. 

22nd April 2020: Golden Jubilee of World Earth Day. 

Today 22nd April, is the 50th anniversary of the World Earth Day, the genesis of which goes back to 1969 when an US Senator, Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin, started expressing his deep concerns over, what he described as, deteriorating environmental conditions, which he noticed across the United States. His concerns caught the attention of people in January 1969, when he and many others witnessed the environmental impact of a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. The impact of this oil spill on the aquatic life and so also the rising air pollution that was happening in US, started appearing in the media. This accentuated a public movement, which was aimed at educating people about the ill effects of pollution, both on human and environmental health. This awareness helped Senator Nelson to announce an idea for a “teach-in on college campuses to the national media” program for which he persuaded Pete McCloskey, a Republican Congressman, to serve as his co-chair. Both of them recruited a young activist Denis Hayes, to organize the campus teach-ins and the day chosen for this program was April 22, a week day and also relatively free time for the students, so as to attract a large student participation. This was one year before the first official celebration of the Earth Day on this very day 22nd April 1970.

This environmental awakening movement soon caught the attention of students across US and so also the imagination of key people, which helped in creating national consciousness on the ill effects of air and water pollution on our health and also on the environment. The participants in this campaign took to the streets, thronged the college campuses, parks and this movement spread from city to city. All the participants in this environment activism had just one message to communicate - save our planet Earth from pollution and awaken the people against their environmental ignorance so that they could demand from their leaders and administration better conservation measures for our planet Earth - the only habitable planet in the solar system. This people driven movement, in just one year culminated with the first massive Earth Day event, which was organised on April 22, 1970 all across the US in which an estimated 20 million people—nearly 10% of the US population—are said to have participated in this pioneering environmental movement. This massive people’s movement helped in spreading the message of protecting natural biodiversity and put forth their concern over environmental deterioration. This movement also led to the launch of several landmark environmental programmes and laws in the United States including Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts. It also helped in creating the all important environmental watch dog - Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the US.

The people’s movement in US and the success of the Earth Day celebrations caught the imagination of the people from across the world. In the year 1990, a group of environmental leaders approached Denis Hayes to once again organize another major campaign for planet Earth. This time, the celebration of the Earth Day went global, mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and leapfrogging environmental issues from the local and state stage onto the world stage. Earth Day 1990 gave a huge boost to recycling efforts worldwide and helped pave the way for the famous 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The Earth Summit is now attended by most global leaders and serves the purpose for collectively addressing environmental concerns.

The massive success of the Earth Day in 1990 and the subsequent formation of the UN Earth Summit inspired activists to start several such environmental movements across the globe. Most countries eventually adopted laws to safeguard the environment. Over the next two decades, Earth Day Network increased its spread to hundreds of millions of people, who were all involved in this environmental campaign and movement. This created opportunities for civic engagement and volunteerism. The Earth Day now engages more than 1 billion people every year and has become a major stepping stone for the protection of our planet Earth. Incidentally the significance of the day - 22nd April - is borne out by the fact that this very day was chosen by the United Nations for the signing of the Paris Agreement on climate change, in 2016.

The year 2020 marks the the fiftieth anniversary of the World Earth Day. On this historic occasion it is important to remind ourselves of the essentiality for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), the evidential need of which is being played out by the Covid 19 pandemic, which has plagued the world and the resulting fatalities have things to do with respiration problems and chest infections that are also the cause of pollution.  Hopefully this new norm and a realisation of how badly we have abused our planet Earth, dawn's upon global leaders and that this realisation helps in accentuating actions for addressing Climate change issues, which incidentally is the theme for this year's World Earth Day.  

Ever since the COVID pandemic started revealing its dangerous virulence leading up to the loss of large number of human lives, particularly in the European countries and also in US, most countries, including India, has taken the route for a national lockdown to contain the Covid contagion. The first period of the lockdown in India was from 26th March until 15th April (for a period of 21 days), which has now been further extended up to 3rd May. This has definitely inconvenienced many including large number of daily wage workers and migrant labourers and innumerable others. But then the hard decision to lockdown the country has helped us in substantially delaying the community spread of this pandemic, as of now. There also has been a spin off benefit of this lockdown not just for India but for the world and that is to do with reduction in pollution levels. 

Ever since the lockout began in India, huge amount of information is being created, generated, consumed and circulated across all the social media platforms, most of this information pertains to the Covid 19 and how amidst all its ill effects the lockdown has also paved the way for improved pollution level indicators in most cities. Some of the visuals, which have gone viral on the social media include different parts of the city space being occupied by animals and birds who are now moving very freely in the city landscapes. There were several messages indicating the lower level of pollution, the Ganges river is reported to be at its cleanest best in places like Kashi and Rishikesh. There were several viral messages of sighting of the Himalayan range from as far as Jalandhar. Harbhajan Singh, Indian spin bowler of repute, who has a huge fan following, tweeted about the sightings of Himalayas and posted a picture of the majestic Himalayas as seen from Jalandhar. All these messages unambiguously point to the fact that the national lock down, which has definitely caused severe hardship to our countrymen, particularly those at the bottom of the ladder,  has brought out some spin off benefits for our Mother Earth. The pollution levels have come down drastically. We are able to breathe a much cleaner air, see better images of the nature and flow of unpolluted rivers. The lockdown has also facilitated free movements of birds and animals, whose habitats we have occupied, which are breathing a sigh of relief from human intervention, may be temporarily. The lockdown has shown us the mirror as to what damage we have been consistently and unabashedly causing to our Mother Earth, which is silently bleeding from within. Hopefully the hard lessons learnt from the national and international lockdowns and its corollary spin off benefits from environmental and climatic condition improvements to our planet Earth, will help us and so also the policy makers and heads of states to reload our thoughts for a more collaborative living with our Mother Earth.

With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, since most parts of the world remain under lockdown, the Earth Day is being celebrated on the digital platform to keep up the momentum. The theme for this year is Climate Action. There is now a realisation that the impact of the coronavirus is both immediate and dreadful. However, there is also another realisation that there is another, deep emergency—the planet’s unfolding environmental crisis. Climate disruption is approaching a point of no return. We must therefore act decisively to protect our planet from both the coronavirus and the existential threat of climate disruption. The theme set for this year’s Earth Day 2020 – the fiftieth year - is Climate Action. In honour of this milestone, Earth Day Network is launching an ambitious set of goals to shape the future of 21st century environmentalism. It is particularly important for India, which is environmentally sensitive and is covered on three sides by the sea and on the north by the Himalayan glaciers. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has warned of severe impacts if the global warming level crosses 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. They have warned that this will lead to the melting of glaciers, droughts and increase in the floods and so also the extinction of some of the species. The global warming will lead to the heat waves becoming intense, leading to the change in weather patterns, which unfortunately we have started witnessing. Fortunately, the call for climate action has grown louder than ever and this historic fiftieth year of World Earth Day will hopefully help in bringing together experts and influencers from diverse fields to engage in a dialogue and spread the message of climate action among people. 

From simple lifestyle changes to driving local or national climate policy, every one of us has the potential to contribute to mitigating climate change. As the world has come to a screeching halt, this Earth Day reminds us that the time is ripe to rethink about the future of planet Earth. I hope that through our experience of the Covid pandemic, we will learn that it is far better to preempt a global problem when we see it on the horizon than start planning for combating it when it engulfs us. This is a lesson that we must apply to the challenge of climate change, which also threatens hundreds of millions of people, as does the Covid 19. The Covid 19 has also taught us lessons that global challenges require globally coordinated responses. I am certain that Covid 19 has helped the global community to come together and this coming togetherness of the world leaders will definitely augur well for combating the equally deadly climate change, which like the Corona virus appears to be invisible yet reveals tell tale signs of its impact for us to take note of and preempt its adverse effects. 

On this historic fiftieth year of the World Earth Day it is time to remind ourselves of what damage we have done to our Mother Earth and to relook at that historic initiative which was started in 1970 that has now become a global movement and take this movement a notch higher for benefitting our Mother Earth.

Long live India and long live planet Earth.