Earth Day, long time passing, time for mourning

[Guest guest]

Healing Our World

By Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.

Earth Day 2003 – A Time for Mourning, Not Craft Fairs

“Where have all the flowers gone?

Long time passing.

Where have all the flowers gone?

Long time ago.

Where have all the flowers gone?

Young girls picked them, every one.

Oh, when will they ever learn?

Oh, when will they ever learnâ€

-- Pete Seeger

" Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to

live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never

really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for

you too. " -- Frederick Buechner

The list of events planned around the U.S. for Earth Day 2003 is chilling.

While deadly pollution harms U.S. soldiers, the people, and environment of

Iraq and the surrounding countries, while the Baghdad zoo has been ransacked

and the animals either killed, let loose, or stolen, while innocent Iraqi

children suffer from U.S. inflicted injuries, and while tens of thousands of

people worldwide die from soil, air, and water poisoned with pesticides and

scores of toxic chemicals, Earth Day craft fairs, discussion groups, and

lectures will be held. Lost is the passion and sense of urgency that heralded

the first Earth Day 33 years ago.

The 33rd Earth Day this year will mark an unprecedented time of resource

consumption and environmental violence against the Earth and our health.

On Earth Day this year, while speeches, conversations and trinket sales take

place:

6003 people worldwide will die from exposure to pesticides and countless more

will suffer serious health threats from chronic exposure.

 

5,400 to 11,000 children will die from diarrhea from polluted drinking water.

 

 

27,000 children will die from curable infectious diseases.

 

164 babies will be born that are effected by mercury poisoning because their

mothers ate contaminated fish, while government agencies recommend that

pregnant women eat several servings of fish each week.

 

Over 103,000 animals will be killed for fur coats.

 

Nearly 2 million gallons of engine oil will be poured down the drain and will

enter our nation’s waterways.

 

Over 41 million pounds of trash will be dumped at sea worldwide. About 77

percent of all ship waste comes from cruise ships.

 

Over 3 million pounds of hydrocarbons will be released into the atmosphere

just from jet skis, lawn mowers, boat engines, and other 2-cycle motors.

 

At least 1,200 gallons of oil and fuel will leak from aging and

malfunctioning pipelines in the U.S., polluting groundwater, lakes, rivers,

oceans and soil.

 

313 million gallons of fuel - enough to drain 26 tractor-trailer trucks every

minute – will be used in the U.S.

 

18 million tons of raw materials will be taken from U.S. soil.

 

Miscarriages will continue to take place among women of the Shoalwater Bay

Tribe in Washington State, possibly from pesticide contamination in cranberry

bogs.

 

Earth Day has become a time when the right wing corporate, industrial, and

political leaders probably rejoice in the passivity of the population. Of

course, there are exceptions and a number of groups throughout the nation

will be mindful of the significance of the day.

Demonstrators in Washington, DC on Earth Day 1970 (Photo courtesy South Coast

AQMD)But the first Earth Day in 1970 saw an estimated 20 million people

across the nation participating in peaceful demonstrations that called

attention to our environmental dilemmas. Senator Gaylord Nelson and activist

Denis Hayes organized it as a nationwide teach-in about the environment. Over

10,000 grade schools, 2,000 colleges, and 1,000 communities participated,

sending a strong message to political leaders that the environment was part

of everyone’s lives and needed attention.

What happened to the grand expectations we had at the first Earth Day, 33

years ago?

Senator Nelson said the purpose of Earth Day was " to shake up the political

establishment and force this issue onto the national agenda.†" It was a

gamble, " he recalls, " but it worked. " There is no gamble any longer. Earth

Day is hardly controversial or threatening to anyone.

Some would argue that although many people are more aware of environmental

issues today than in 1970, little has been done to stem the tide of

environmental destruction in a world where economic growth outweighs

planetary health. If anything, the destruction is happening at a greater

level than ever before. It is often less visible because industry leaders and

politicians know how to keep things quieter with the help of well paid public

relations firms.

The first Earth Day's message was heard and in the few years that followed,

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.

It was a powerful time of reawakening and it appeared, for a while, that the

sobering realization of our impact on the natural world might result in

positive change. Species were saved, habitats protected, and development

projects were stopped. In New York City, over 100,000 people attended an

ecology fair in Central Park.

On the first Earth Day, Congress adjourned for the day and over 500 of its

members attended teach-ins at universities or made speeches about saving the

environment.

On Earth Day 2003, will the President join Congress and adjourn for the day

to attend teach-ins? Unlikely. In fact, the current presidential

administration has succeeded in weakening most of the environmental rules

that emerged from the awareness raised from the first Earth Day.

There will be many events across the nation on Earth Day 2003. In Seattle,

there will be a lecture about how to make your yard a haven for birds and

butterflies at the Sammamish Plateau Water and Sewer District Office. There

will be an Earth and Energy Fair at the University of Washington. There will

be green building seminars and tours. There will be a weed pulling party at

Mud Bay in Olympia.

The Sierra Club will be asking Iowans to put up yard signs and sign

postcards, to educate about the need to protect air and water quality. In

Louisiana, there will be a storytelling program for children at the St.

Tammany Parish Library. There will be a fair and festival at Georgia Southern

University.

Big deal.

Since the first Earth Day 33 years ago, the global population has increased

by as much as it did in the last 100,000 years. And as the number of people

has grown, the amount of land and resources consumed has also expanded. The

gap between the rich and the poor has also widened dramatically.

Liquid pollution pours into a British waterway (Photo courtesy FreeFoto)The

global economy has more than doubled in the past 33 years, putting pressure

on most countries to increase export income, often at the expense of their

natural resources. Overfishing is decimating one ocean species after another,

and the catch is getting thinner and thinner.

Tens of thousands of toxic chemicals stream into our world and into our

bodies and there is no end in site. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health

Administration (OSHA) estimates that more than 32 million workers are exposed

to harmful substances from more than 3.5 million workplaces. Forty-nine

million tons of solvents are produced each year in the United States and 9.8

million workers are exposed to them daily. Yet over the last 33 years, OSHA

has issued only about 170 citations to employers for not having proper

procedures to protect against toxic substances leaving the workplace.

While the lectures and conversations take place on Earth Day, in Bangladesh,

hungry people fight to get fish from polluted sewage treatment plant water.

In Iraq, only 500 people out of a city of five million have electricity and

power restored. Also in Iraq, criminals carefully planned the thefts and

destruction of all the country’s archeological, artistic and literary

treasures. The loss to the world of these artifacts, some dating from the

dawn of human civilization, is a catastrophe of proportions never before seen

in the history of the Earth. The Bush administration has hired a U.S. company

to revise the curriculum in Iraqi schools. As always, the victors rewrite the

history books.

A recent U.S. government study shows that the nation’s waterways are filled

with billions of pounds of toxic substances that are combining in unknown

ways. The chemicals include caffeine, contraceptives, painkillers, insect

repellent, perfumes, and nicotine. Virtually nothing is known about the

health effects of ingesting this toxic mix of pharmaceutical and personal

product pollutants. At least 31 antibiotics and anti-bacterial compounds were

found in water samples from around the country.

These chemicals are being linked to deformed sex organs in wildlife, sex

reversals in some fish, declining fertility in humans, and cancers.

Children view a solar powered model train in Los Angeles on Earth Day 2001.

(Photo courtesy Go Solar Company)Thirty-three years after the first Earth

Day, I am feeling rather cynical. Earth Day 2003 is a Hallmark card holiday,

a day of a few beach clean-ups, educational booths, tree plantings, speeches,

conversations 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 demanding an end to

the madness sweeping across our world and few events pledging solidarity to

those fighting for the cleanup of our Earth, our seas, and our skies.

It should NOT be a day to sell T-shirts as fundraisers. It should be a day to

teach simplification, to model how to end our consumption at all costs

lifestyle, and to highlight the importance of establishing a deep and

profound connection to the natural world, the cycles of life, and the rhythms

of nature.

On Earth Day 2003, maybe more than ever before in history, we need to reflect

seriously on the fact that time may really be running out for our planet's

life support systems - and for us.

Maybe Earth Day should be a global call to stop work, to stop driving, stop

killing, to sit quietly at home, use as few resources as possible, and teach

our children that the raping and plundering of the Earth in the name of

economic growth has taken us to the brink of disaster.

Maybe Earth Day should be a day of national listening, listening for, as

Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn says, for the sound of the Earth crying. If we

really hear that sound, our only choice would be to act – now.