Earth Day-- Mañana

A reaction to fanatics-- both religionist and capitalist-- had a lot to do with the first Earth Day. Extreme capitalists-- predators and sociopaths-- just want to rape and pillage for their own profit and have no concern for their neighbors or our descendants. Religious loons view this planet as a temporary way station on the road to eternal life with harps. The Old Testament verse most frequently sited as proof that rape and pillage was God's plan is Genesis 1:28--

God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

That-- having dominion over-- means pillage and plunder in the Republican Brain, but means taking care of God's creation to normal people.

It would be hard to find a less environmentally friendly senator than Ayn Rand devotee Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. His a pillager and plunderer. The irony is that Johnson's seat was once held by a real Senate icon, Gaylord Nelson, the progressive who started Earth Day on April 22, 1970. He inserted this into the Congressional Record at the time:

I am convinced that all we need to do to bring an overwhelming insistence of the new generation that we stem the tide of environmental disaster is to present the facts clearly and dramatically. To marshal such an effort, I am proposing a national teach-in on the crisis of the environment to be held next spring on every university campus across the Nation. The crisis is so imminent, in my opinion, that every university should set aside 1 day in the school year-the same day across the Nation-for the teach-in.

Tomorrow half a billion people will be observing Earth Day in 175 countries around the globe. The The Earth Day Network is helping mobilize and coordinate activities all over the world. To prepare for the festivities tomorrow I spoke with some of the Blue America candidates about what Earth Day means to them. The first to respond was Norman Solomon, who is running for Congress in one of the most beautiful regions of the world-- the Northern California coast-- Redwoods country.

"I remember listening to news of the first Earth Day on the radio in 1970," he told me. "Today, our awareness of ecology is much greater-- but the damage to our planet's environment has been terrible during the last several decades. We must rededicate ourselves to living in harmony with-- and protecting-- nature. And we can only do that with a democratic upsurge that challenges the huge power of Wall Street and mobilizes the potential power of the grassroots."

Within minutes of Norman's response, Cecil Bothwell's was on my desktop. Cecil is also running in an extraordinarily beautiful district, the westernmost region of North Carolina. And he also remembers the first Earth Day:

I started work in the building trades in 1970, the year of the first Earth Day, and had the Whole Earth Catalogue in hand as I grew in my knowledge of construction and our ecological footprint. By 1979 I had moved off the grid, powering my life with photovoltaics and low energy technologies. I stayed off the grid until 2001, when other events in my life led me into the city. During the 1990s I began to pursue a career as a writer and lecturer, and offered talks on alternative energy and other impact-reducing techniques, including organic gardening. In the mid-90s I was founding editor of the Warren Wilson College environmental journal, Heartstone, and had the good fortune to publish and meet such movement figures as Bill McKibben (now of 350.org), Jane Goodall, Thomas Berry, Janice Ray, and Edward O. Wilson. I wrote radio essays for a series called Time for the Earth, recorded by Goodall and William Least Heat Moon.
 
Today my work on the Asheville City Council, and as Council liaison to the Sustainability Advisory Committee on Energy and the Environment, and to the Asheville Tree Commission, have permitted me to help implement public policy consistent with the earth ethic I have developed over many years. During my term we have voted to cut Asheville's carbon footprint by 4 percent per year, implemented a single-stream recycling program that has greatly increased participation and diversion from the waste stream, made multi-modal transit a key goal (encouraging walking, biking, and transit use instead of autos), and replacing all of our street lights with LEDs-- a move that will save taxpayers $365,000 dollars per year (and that includes paying for the new lights!). Each Earth Day I look back over my career and can see that the movement shaped me and helped me shape the movement.

This year, despite the best efforts of the fossil fuel industry, more and more people are making the connection between human carbon emissions and climate change. The sweltering summer heat and mid-winter tornadoes are offering a wake-up call that average folks can't ignore. I'm hopeful that this year's celebration will kick off a renewed call for progress to a lower energy future. We can do better. And we must.

The district right next door to Cecil's, NC-10, is now represented by Global Warning Denier and corporate shill Patrick McHenry. The progressive Democrat taking McHenry on is Rep. Patsy Keever who is a commonsense grandmother who would like to make sure her grandchildren get more than a toxic waste dump of a planet as their heritage.

I’m a big supporter of Earth Day as a way to raise our consciousness about the duty we have to nurture and our natural surroundings. I’ve participated in the event almost every year since the beginning, and I look forward to the Asheville Earth Day event over the weekend.

You may not remember this, but when Earth Day began in 1970, it had backing from both Republicans and Democrats, industrialists and labor leaders, city dwellers and farmers. In fact, much of the landmark legislation of the era-- the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act-- came about through the momentum created by thousands of concerned citizens coming together in common cause. On a personal level, I began recycling, composting and taking measures to conserve energy, and I began encouraging others to do the same.

When I get to Congress, I will work to recapture the bipartisanship that fueled the early years of Earth Day as well as the eagerness of citizens to make a difference. We must come together to deal with the causes of climate change-- community wide, nationally and globally. I intend to continue to take a strong stand for a healthy and clean environment, not only for myself, but for my grandchildren and their peers who all deserve a flourishing planet to live on.

Alan Grayson (D-FL) also recalls his first Earth Day, which was the first time people were celebrating it back in 1970: "On the first Earth Day, when I was in junior high school, our Science teacher took us all across the street to the park. We spent the afternoon enjoying the company of the best possible companion on Earth Day: the Earth."

Nick Ruiz is also based in Central Florida and he's from the next generation after Norman's, Alan's and Cecil's. From what I know of him, a lot of his reverence for Earth Day comes from his devotion to surfing and to Florida's beautiful, pristine beaches. "I'm an advocate for biodiversity and the stewardship of our planet Earth," he told me yesterday, "because not to do so, is self-destructive. It's also why I propose to integrate the tasks of federal space, health and environmental agencies, such as NASA, NOAA, EPA, NIH, etc. with our federal educational agencies, and the regulation of K-20 education in all fifty states. There is no better way to educate our people about our planet, and how important health and ecodiversity are to humanity, than right from the beginning of one's education in kindergarten. Citizens then need to proceed through the educational system and grow-up with a rich ecological understanding regarding these basic environmental concepts. In the end, citizens that understand what is at stake in the planet's health and sustainability, will then be better placed to do the right thing. Such a proposal is the path to a sustainable future."

And, still in his 20's, Trevor Thomas is younger yet-- though not less committed to the survival of the planet and his beautiful part of Michigan. "West Michigan has a thousand reasons to celebrate Earth Day. No matter where you go in our region, you’re surrounded by breathtaking forest, farmland, rivers, in lakes, even the Great Lake of Lake Michigan to our west. We’re so fortunate to have these natural resources all around us-- and we should be doing everything we can to preserve them for future generations. But you wouldn’t know how lucky we are by looking at Rep. Justin Amash’s record on the environment. Although Republicans from West Michigan have been more interested in environmental issues than Republicans nationally, Rep. Amash has changed that course and has consistently voted to block the EPA from doing its job. He’s been targeted by the Environmental Defense Action Fund as one of the members of congress who is keeping clean air legislation from moving forward. Even President Gerry Ford, a Republican who represented West Michigan in Congress, supported clean air. Protecting and preserving our land, water, and air shouldn’t be partisan issues, and Earth Day gives our community a chance to come together and really appreciate all that we have."

When I want the perspective of a deep thinker among the Blue America America candidates, I know Franke Wilmer, a state Rep and a professor in Montana, will never fail me. Nor did she when I asked her about Earth Day.

I propose renaming Earth Day “We’re All In This Together Day.” Unfortunately, some of us don’t realize that we’re all in this together. It’s never been about saving the Earth. The Earth will save itself. It’s about securing our own future against the consequences of our ecologically irresponsible behavior in the present.

Today big businesses that profit from our failure to halt CO2 emissions deny the science of climate change the same way that big tobacco challenged science that linked smoking to lung cancer decades ago. But over 90 percent of the world’s scientists agree that we are experiencing effects of human-induced climate change, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences, American Geophysical Union, World Meteorological Organization, American Academy of Pediatrics an 71 other national and international science organization. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists, once the lone dissenting scientific organization, rescinded its dissent in 2007.

Most Montanans wouldn’t mind a slightly warmer climate, but that’s not what the science is about. It’s about the extinction of species that, according to Nobel Laureate Dr. Eric Chivian of the Harvard Medical School, may provide medically valuable knowledge, like treatments for peptic ulcer disease affecting 25 million Americans, end stage renal disease that kills 80,000 Americans a year, osteoporosis that kills 70,000 Americans a year, Type 2 diabetes killing a quarter of a million people each year, and arrhythmias.

It’s about the economic and geo-strategic impact of regional climate change on agriculture and energy. It’s about migrations of species like bark beetles and their impact on forestry and wildfires. In impoverished countries it’s about more death and suffering from increases in malaria and water and air-borne diseases. It’s about increased radiation and corresponding increases in skin cancer and melanoma, particularly in higher altitudes. It’s about understanding that our destiny, our fate is in some critical ways shared. It’s about understanding that we’re all in this together.

More responses from more Blue America candidates tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, think about what Earth Day means to you and your family-- and how much you value clean air and clear water and the beauty that God gave us to enjoy. And think about contributing to the campaigns of our Blue America candidates. They're all on the same page.