18 hours Ago
This Tuesday is Earth Day. The universe is understood to have formed about 13.8 billion years ago, and Earth formed about 4.
5 billion years ago. As we “modern” humans (evolving into Homo Sapiens about 300,000 years ago) celebrate Earth Day, it’s useful to consider both (1) where this jubilee sits in a larger history as well as (2) where it came from. First, a longer history of millions and billions of years ago can be hard for many of us to get our heads around.
Some analogies help. • Crispin Tickell talked about the time since the Earth’s accretion, if you will, as a 45-year time span (where one year = 100 million years). So since planet Earth formed, major ices ages occurred about 23, 7, 4 and 3 years ago, as well as about 7 days ago (two million actual years ago).
Dinosaurs lived for just over a year and a half before dying out six months ago. Modern humans then emerged less than a day ago. In the last minute of this span (about 250 years ago), the Industrial Revolution was born.
• John McPhee wrote that if the span of Earth’s history was the distance from the tip of your nose to the end of your extended arm and middle finger, then a stroke of a nailfile on that finger would remove the equivalent of human existence on planet Earth. While we have been here a relatively short amount of time, we’ve made unprecedented impacts on planet Earth through our (mis)behaviors. Second, Earth Day itself traces back to a time of vigorous environmental policymaking under the watch of the U.
S. Republican President Nixon and his Administration. While the roots of these shoots are a longer story that stretches further back in history, during the Nixon years (1969-1974) the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act were passed alongside the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency and other key federal policy and regulatory groups.
From the bully pulpit, U.S. President Nixon called environmentalism the new “selflessness.
” He proclaimed that a key question during that dynamic time of environmental legislation, regulations and court decisions was whether “we surrender to our surroundings (or) make our peace with nature (through) reparations for damage we have done to our air, to our land and to our water.” In that lively time, Earth Day started in the U.S.
as an idea for a gathering that addressed a surge of interest in environmental awareness and nascent action as well as quality-of-life considerations. Wisconsin Democratic Senator Gaylord Nelson is credited with leading on organizing the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, as a “National Teach-in on the Crisis of the Environment.” This was quickly corporatized in some key ways, but nonetheless represented a mainstreaming of environmental concern across the country and around the world.
In the subsequent years and decades, Earth Day went global in part by the work of labor leader Walter Reuther. As an indicator of planetary engagement, the 2015 United Nations Paris Agreement on Climate Change opened for signatures at a high-profile UN ceremony where 175 country leaders participated. Earth Day has also expanded to Earth Week and Earth Month bashes.
Earth Day is a day that is festive but is, importantly, also a day of critical reflection about humans’ role in environmental impacts, losses, damage, and destruction as well as discussions about contradictions that we live by. Deliberations include these cruel realities: • those at the forefront of environmental impacts have contributed extraordinarily little to the problems; • the worst effects are often not felt by those perpetuating environmental problems in the near or long term; • those with most to lose often have the least voice, power and access to effect positive change. Earth Day is then both celebratory and solemn.
Bringing these strands together on this Earth Day/Week/Month is that these things (Earth) and observances (Earth Day) have been made. These provide opportunities for us all to consider how to un-make some things while making other things differently as we strive to re-make things better for everyone. In times of isolation(ism), it’s a valuable time to recognize our interconnectedness and interdependence.
This is a biweekly sustainability and environment column authored by Max Boykoff. Boykoff is a faculty member at the University of Colorado Boulder, though these the views expressed here are based upon his scholarly expertise and research/creative experience as well as personal views and should not be considered the university’s official position on any specific issue. Email: mboykoff@gmail.
com..
