Some people are really getting into the spirit of Earth Day, the annual environmental awareness day. Some are most definitely not. It’s like A Christmas Carol, but with Al Gore as Tiny Tim and maybe Bjorn Lomborg as Scrooge.
The reoccurring theme of those giving their full backing to the day is “We don’t need one Earth Day, we need 365 of them” (eg, The Montreal Gazette). A similar note is struck by the King Features comic syndication company, which has put out a whole series of strips demanding ‘earth day every day’ (news coverage). You know things are serious when Spiderman and Dennis the Menace get involved.
Actually though we are already supposed to be having Earth Day every day. This is International Year of Planet Earth – as detailed in Nature’s recent supplement.
Google has put out a special map to allow people to share Earth Day ideas. So far it seems no one in Europe has chipped in, but in the United States they’re promising to do everything from walking to work and taking the stairs to using biodegradable golf tees. Brice from Texas is taking a step that may well catch on as green trend: “I will shutdown my computer leave the work 1 hour earlier.”
Providing fuel to those who accuse environmentalists of over-hyping the problem, the Times of India declares, “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.”
And here come the party poopers…
First there are those who think the whole event has become too commercial. Glen MacIntosh, of the Toronto Climate Campaign, organized a ‘Reclaim Earth Day’ protest on Sunday, the Toronto Star reports.
“People are being deceived,” he says. “They attend the Earth Day events thinking they are doing a good thing, but really they are being entertained, sold to.”
As the Wall Street Journal notes, “Launched in 1970 as a protest against corporate environmental misconduct, Earth Day has become a planet-hugging marketing frenzy for companies themselves.”
Over on Salon, Joseph Romm seems more interested in the nomenclature. After mulling a number of alternatives, he concludes, “We have fiddled like Nero for far too long to save the whole earth or all of its species. Now we need a World War II scale effort just to cut our losses and save what matters most. So let’s call it Triage Day. And if worst comes to worst, at least future generations won’t have to change the name again.”
There is another reason why people might not be totally committed to Earth Day though. Today is also National Jelly Bean day.
Image: NASA Visible Earth