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Hank Stueyer of The Washington Post writes that Earth Day is dead, following a long but admirable struggle with celebrity piety and corporate baloney and, more specifically, too many ‘green’ issues in too many magazines. A roundup of what other newspapers and websites had to say on April 22
April 22 was Earth Day and newspapers around the world carried articles on the annual celebration of the environment. It was also time to assess what was still needed to protect the planet. The Washington Post ran an article called ‘What Killed Earth Day: Too Much Fuss And No Bother’, by staff writer Hank Stueyer, who says: “Today isn’t Earth Day anymore. Haven’t you heard? Earth Day is dead… Earth Day was 38 years old. What killed it? A long but admirable struggle with celebrity piety and corporate baloney, mainly… But specifically? Too many ‘green’ issues in too many magazines.” Stueyer goes on to ridicule pop stars getting into their private jets to go speak on behalf of the polar ice caps, advertisements highlighting the ‘greenness’ inherent in the petroleum industry, and people griping about people griping about light bulbs. And people griping about people griping about Al Gore. “That sort of wussiness won’t save the planet. Earth Day died because, it turns out, saving the earth is going to be very complicated. It is going to require attention spans, intelligence, sacrifice and lawyers, and more than one day a year. To save the earth, Earth Day had to go,” says the writer, ending the piece with, “Earth Day is survived by its long-time companion, Mother Nature.” The Post carries another article listing the good and bad of Earth Day, 38 years on: “Almost everybody seems to be doing -- or buying -- something to lighten their burden on the environment. Twisty light bulbs. Hybrid cars. Even, ‘bananas with a conscience’. “But it can still seem as though nobody is doing enough. Nationally (in the US), climate change has become a galvanising political issue. But real-world changes still lag: US emissions are projected to rise, not fall, over the next two decades.” The newspaper quotes Kathleen Rogers, president of the Washington district-based Earth Day Network: “On the surface, there’s this glowing green thing going on, but beneath it there’s something a lot murkier and darker.” Since the first Earth Day, in 1970, environmental laws have helped clean up rivers across the country, including the once-abysmal Potomac. The banning of the pesticide DDT in the 1970s helped bring back the bald eagle, which has now re-colonised Washington’s urban core. But even with “green” becoming nearly as common as “lite” on supermarket labels, some environmental historians say they wonder what it is all adding up to. They worry that the activity will give the illusion that major environmental problems are being solved -- when, in fact, many remain intractable. “Earth Day today is really much more like Mother’s Day, or maybe Martin Luther King Day,” the Post goes on to quote Adam Rome, a professor of history at Penn State University. “It’s a once-a-year day to think about some things or maybe do a little something,” he says, “not the call for major life change and political action that it was in 1970.” The Boston Globe is more forthright: “Earth Day, 2008: An event that was once historic has become a farce.” “The French Revolution gave us Thermidor, which refers to the inevitable, conservative reaction that follows a time of radical upheaval. And what day than today, Earth Day, to celebrate Eco-Thermidor, the ecological movement’s plunge into narcissistic self-parody and mind-numbing idiocy,” says the Globe. “To paraphrase the critic Dorothy Parker: You hear the word ‘green’ and you want to fwow up.” The Wall Street Journal runs a piece that says how the world has never seemed more focused on the environment than it is this Earth Day -- and that worries many environmentalists. “Launched in 1970 as a protest against corporate environmental misconduct, Earth Day has become a planet-hugging marketing frenzy for companies themselves. Makers of everything from snack chips to sport-utility vehicles now use April 22 to boast about their efforts to help save the planet. Pitching energy-efficient products, Wal-Mart Stores Inc, once criticised for being environmentally unfriendly, isn’t content with a mere Earth Day. In a national marketing campaign, the retailer is declaring April ‘Earth Month’,” says the article. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review says it’s time to clear the air about how the United States affects the environment -- and how extremist environmentalism could affect the US. It quotes from a report of leading environmental indicators by the Pacific Research Institute and the American Enterprise Institute to say that the US remains the world’s environmental leader and will likely be so in the future. “Between 1997 and 2004 (the last year of available comparative data), greenhouse gas emissions from the countries that signed the Kyoto Protocol increased 21.1%. Emissions from the US increased only 6.6%. But the widespread call for the US to reduce CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050 will create a bleak green world. Barring revolutionary breakthroughs, Americans will have to do without hot water, refrigerators, air conditioning and flat-screen TVs,” the report says. “To achieve the arbitrary 80% reduction target, US per capita emissions will have to be less than 2.5 tonnes (down from approximately 20 tonnes today). Haiti and Somalia are the only nations today that have greenhouse gas emissions that low. By clearing the air, this report could prevent green scolds employing dubious science from denying mankind a bright future,” says the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Then, there’s an interesting news item on the CNN Money website about companies in the Market Vectors Environmental Services ETF (EVX) picking up trash and providing other environmental services every day whilst people around the world celebrate Earth Day by attending free concerts, handing out environmental awareness brochures and maybe taking part in a beach cleanup. The prospects for these companies look good as there’s more trash than ever, they remain unaffected by the credit crisis, and their businesses are recession-proof, according to Standard & Poor’s equity research. Cash flows are strong, and the companies are driving growth by raising rates. But rising gas prices could pinch profits. One of the companies broke ground this month to build a new site that burns trash to make electricity. It can potentially power more than 6,400 homes. The company plans to build 60 new facilities for renewable energy by 2012. It runs more than 100 such sites in North America. Carl Duivenvoorden, one of 22 Atlantic Canadians trained by Al Gore to deliver presentations of An Inconvenient Truth, in a regular column in Telegraph-Journal, says 38 years after the first Earth Day was celebrated a lot has changed -- and little has changed. “Much has changed, because the environment now consistently ranks as a leading issue for Canadian voters. But little has changed because many of us haven’t quite gotten around to turning those promising poll responses into concrete action. Today, our country’s greenhouse gas emissions are an astounding 25% higher than they were when the high school grads of 2008 were born, putting us among the highest per capita polluters on the planet,” says Duivenvoorden. He goes on to suggest everyday simple actions that can make a big difference in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. His suggestions include driving less (it’s a well-worn message, but still a critical one), use a clothesline (the original form of solar energy elbowed out by dryers), shower lightly (hot water is one of the biggest users of power in your home), buy locally produced food (it’s estimated that the average food item on our plate has travelled more than 2,000 km, and movement of food accounts for one-third of the trucks on our roads), eat your veggies (it takes about the same amount of energy to produce 1 kg of beef as it does to produce about 10 kg of wheat, rice or corn), and last but not the least, reduce, reuse and recycle. And don’t forget to plant a tree. “Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas produced when we burn oil, coal and natural gas. Plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow, and one tree can sponge up 1 tonne of CO2 over the course of its life. Know of an empty space that could use a bit of green? Plant one tree, or plant several. Roadsides and forest floors are loaded with free seedlings just yearning to be transplanted, and this is the perfect time of year to do it,” says Duivenvoorden. Closer home, publications from neighbouring Pakistan and Sri Lanka dwell on the history and relevance of Earth Day: “Most of us have heard of Earth Day but do not really know what it is… Some have described Earth Day as a birthday of sorts for the planet. Of course, it is not the date on which the planet was actually born, but it is a celebration of the planet that we live on… Modern-day environmentalism was born on April 22, 1970. “It was in 1970 that Gaylord Nelson, a member of the US Senate, stated that in the spring of 1970 there would be a nationwide celebration of our environment. Nelson created the day in the hope of putting the environment on the forefront of the national agenda because till that point many people took the earth’s resources for granted.” Apparently this piece, appearing in The Post in Pakistan, was authored by a studentat the Institute of Communication Studies, Punjab University, Lahore. Daily Mirror, the largest selling independent English daily in Sri Lanka, refers to marine biologist Rachel Carson who published Silent Spring in 1962, painting a bleak future without birds and describing in plain language devastating long-term effects of highly toxic pesticides and other chemical agents then commonly used in American agriculture, industry and everyday life. “The history of Earth Day mirrors the growth of environmental awareness over the last three decades, and the legacy of Earth Day is the certain knowledge that the environment is a universal concern,” writes the Daily Mirror. At home, most Indian publications refer to the food shortages that are no longer just the concern of people living below the poverty line. “Irrational and bad weather has become an agent of virulent change; crops are crashing, water is vanishing, and the ozone hole is threatening to get bigger than the stratosphere itself,” says The Economic Times. Al Gore and Rajendra Pachauri are quoted to strengthen the argument that mere citizen movements will no longer do; the environment will have to become part of the political agenda. “Sounds like a lofty movement, but it is pertinent to point out that in these years the planet has been mauled so collectively and nastily that its longevity has literally shrunk a million times… As many as 30% of species are on an extinction list; and air pollution is set to cause around 2 million premature deaths worldwide every year. In India, air pollution is believed to cause 527,700 fatalities a year,” says The Economic Times. An article in The Mint says that in developing countries like India concerns about climate change parallel concerns about meeting energy demands for so-called development works. “Consider this. The country’s largest electricity generator National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has also been identified as the third largest polluter among the world’s power generation companies by the Washington-based Centre for Global Development. At the same time, India faces an acute power shortage that leaves more than 400 million, mostly rural, people without electricity every day. Nearly 7 million Indians use firewood and animal waste as fuel for cooking. The country needs to expand its power generation capacity by 160,000 MW over the next decade.” By the government’s estimates, energy consumption in India is set to quadruple over the next 25 years, inevitably increasing greenhouse gas emissions. India points out, however, that it contributes 4.6% of the world’s greenhouse gases although its people represent 17% of the world’s population. India has pledged to ensure that its per capita emissions will never exceed those of the developed world. InfoChange News & Features, April 2008 |
