Grace Summers
Artwork by Grace Summers
Far too often, Earth Day is an event that passes without any significance.
Elementary school children might have a special day in class for it April 22, probably learning about reusing, reducing and recycling, but there is rarely any substantial progress in the field of environmentalism on this day.
For the vast majority of the population, Earth Day passes just like any other.
This needs to change, for the sake of our future.
We have no trouble identifying the environmental issues plaguing us: pollution, climate change, deforestation, overexploitation and more.
Resource consumption has been going nothing but up for decades, especially as more and more countries begin to undergo large-scale industrialization.
When the United States and other Western countries went through this process, there were hardly a billion people on Earth, lowering the impact of such rapid change. Now China alone, a country currently experiencing rapid industrialization, has more than a billion people.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the name given to the monumental amount of plastic and other trash circulating through the Pacific Ocean, has recently been determined by the Ocean Cleanup Foundation to be almost twice the size of Texas.
On the animal life front, giraffes were recently put on the endangered species list and the last male White Rhino died. That leaves just two members of the entire species left, both of whom are in captivity.
But it is not all bad. Some progress has been made. For instance, the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica has been steadily recovering since the Montreal Agreement in 1987.
In many countries, there is also general public sentiment for moving towards renewable energy sources. Almost one-third of Germany’s electricity is supplied from renewable sources. That number is one-fifteenth for the United States and is similar for Britain and France.
Change can happen. But in order for us to make any real move forward in protecting the environment and the planet, we need to accept that this is not something we can think about just one day a year.
Every day is Earth Day.