“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.”
― Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder
The Earth Day network, which spearheads the worlds largest environmental movement and leads the commemoration of the ‘World Earth Day’, succinctly defines the importance of this day. It emphasises that ‘this is the moment to change it all — the business climate, the political climate, and how we take action on climate. Now is the time for the unstoppable courage to preserve and protect our health, our families, our livelihoods… together, we must Invest In Our Planet’.
The significance of the Earth Day (22 April) can be appreciated when we look at the singularity of the position of our planet earth in our universe, which is the only known celestial body which harbours life. This is profoundly evidenced in an excerpt taken from that famous Carl Sagan book - Pale Blue Dot. It highlights Earth’s insignificant, yet profound position in the vast universe, which we are home to. The ‘Pale Blue Dot’ passage and the accompanying narration by Carl Sagan was inspired by an iconic image of the earth that was taken by space Voyager 1 on that historic day - 14 February,1990 - as the Voyager spacecraft was moving out of our planetary neighbourhood. At the ‘behest’ of Carl Sagan, NASA scientists commanded their Voyager 1 to turn around for one last look at the earth to capture the image of our home planet. Voyager 1 was about 6.4 billion kilometers away from our earth, and approximately 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane, when it captured the historic portrait of our planet - Pale Blue Dot, which is seen webbed in the center of a scattered light rays. Our Earth appears as a tiny point of light - a crescent - only 0.12 pixel in size.
Notwithstanding the ridiculously insignificant size of our earth - a speck of dust in the unending cosmos - in comparison with the vast universe, yet, our ‘Pale Blue Dot’ is the only known source of celestial body in the universe, which harbours life, as we know it today. It is therefore incumbent upon us - its prime inhabitants, the humans - to invest in our Planet and in that sense commemoration of the ‘ Earth Day’ augurs well for the green and prosperous future of our earth. Therefore, the theme for this years World Earth Day - Invest in our Planet - is apt since it strives to highlight how everyone can invest their time and energy to be a part of the change, which is so very essential for saving our planet.
Over the past 52 years, the people and countries who have been involved with the World Earth Day has expanded vastly. It is now estimated that over one billion people take part in Earth Day festivities in 192 countries. This day must remind us - particularly the world leaders - that we all have a single common enemy - Climate Change - and therefore we must all unite to focus our collective energy and efforts in accelerating solutions to combat the climate change menace - largely a human construct- and to activate everyone – governments, citizens, and businesses – to commit to this cause under a banner ‘Everyone accounted for, and everyone accountable’. It is time for us to push aside the barriers and/or crevices of any kind between nations and move forward with an objective of marching away from the pollution driven ‘dirty’ fossil fuel economy and other associated old technologies - that are driven by fossil fuel- in the past centuries and redirect our attention to creating a 21st century with clean and green economy that brings back the health of our planet, protects our species, and provides opportunities for all inhabitants of planet earth befitting maintaining Sustainable Development Goals.
Speaking of bringing back health of planet to protect our species and to provide opportunities for all, one is reminded of Ms. Rachel Carson, an author - spinster and an alleged lesbian - who fought all odds of personal attacks and gender discrimination to bring to focus environmental impact, which later became a beacon for her followers to take to activism in support of environmental concerns for Earth. Her efforts provided that much needed impetus for the declaration and commemoration of the World Earth Day, which we are now celebrating. The publication of Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring" (1962) highlighted the dark sides of the environmental effect of chemicals, which were rampantly being abused across the world. She wrote this book to alert the world to the poisonous legacy of excess use and abuse of pesticides (DDT). Her book is often considered as a cornerstone in the conservation movement and environmental activism for creating a worldwide awareness of ecological systems. The book earned her a posthumous presidential medal in US, even as she was made to endear vitriolic attacks from the chemical industry lobby, who were up in arms against her criticism of their thriving industry. The book reminded people that all human commerce has consequences that must be considered carefully; and that watchfulness is democracy's surest defence.
Ms Rachel Carson is considered as one of the finest nature writer of the 20th century, and is remembered today as the woman who challenged the notion that humans could obtain mastery over nature by chemicals, bombs and space travel. She is also remembered for her studies of ocean life. Her best-selling book, ‘Silent Spring’, attracted cynicism as well as support from different corners including getting noticed by John F Kennedy, President, thus leading to the mobilisation of activism in environmental movement. Her book and her environmental activism helped Government entities to study environmental issues and come out with regulations to govern environmental problems. She relied on scientific facts in her remorseless presentations to strike home her strong message. Her critics labelled her as hysterical and unscientific, yet she remained undeterred. Today her trials and tribulations for combating pollution and climate change, which she believed were impacting planet earth and its life species have been recognised.
The genesis of the World Earth Day - 22 April - goes back to 1969 when US Senator, Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin, started expressing his deep concerns over, what he described as ‘deteriorating environmental conditions’. He noticed adverse impact that a massive oil spill had on the marine life, in Santa Barbara, California and so also the impact of carbon emissions from vehicular exhausts, which were causing air pollution. He realised how important it is to create public awareness on pollution and environmental issues. He therefore chose college students as mother earths brand ambassadors and selected April 22, a relatively free date for college students, for the “teach-in on college campuses to the national media” program. 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. This program turned out to be a path breaking event, which led to the national consciousnesses on environmental issues and this movement attracted some 20 million people - 10% of American population - who took part in the first Earth Day celebrations that were held across cities in US on the 22nd April 1970. Ever since, this day is celebrated as the Earth Day.
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 helped in spreading the message of protecting natural biodiversity and put forth the concern of people 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 importance of this years World Earth Day can be appreciated from the the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which 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. This year, as we celebrate the World Earth Day under the theme ‘ Invest in our Planet ‘, it is time for us individually to commit ourselves to investing our time and energy in saving our planet.
From simple lifestyle changes to driving local or national climate policy, every one of us has the potential to contribute to mitigating climate change that has impacted our planet. As the world came to a screeching halt during the pandemic period, this Earth Day must remind 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 global 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. And this coming togetherness of the world leaders will definitely augur well for combating the 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 our pale blue planet.
On this 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.
Images - Courtesy Wiki Commons, Earth Reminders.com and Columbia Climate School.
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