Tehipite Chapter of the Sierra Club

Make Every Day Earth Day

by Heather Anderson

Earth Day (April 22) almost coincides with John Muir’s birthday (April 21). With Muir’s involvement in conservation questions, he became an inspiration to environmentalists everywhere. He was aware of the need for a wake-up call. The man who took up that challenge was Gaylord Nelson, former governor and later senator from Wisconsin. He convinced President Kennedy to embrace environmental protection and conservation. Nelson sponsored many environmental policies, from a ban on DDT, a promotion of gas mileage standards, to the landmark Wilderness Act of 1964. He worked endlessly to help pass the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act. In an age of national “teach-ins” against the Vietnam War, Nelson staged the first Earth Day celebration; in 1970 twenty million people took part. In 2000, more than five hundred million people worldwide participated in environmental events.

Unfortunately, the issue to which he was most devoted in the last decade of his life, population, was rarely mentioned. Nelson asked us to imagine what it would be like with twice as many everything: twice as many people, twice as many schools, highways, and parking lots. It is an issue folks are reluctant to address. In 1960, for example, global population was three billion; by 1999, it had doubled to six billion, and by 2050 it is expected to be nine billion. In Nelson’s eyes, population growth is a threat to environmental sustainability,

There is much to do, but at what level? Global, local, or both? Media coverage suggests global warming as the major world issue of the day. Brian Fagin in The Great Warming is worried about drought, and notes how drought in earlier times has brought cultures to the edge of collapse. The difference is that now climate is changing faster and will affect billions of people in one of the richest nations, people ill prepared to cope with severe water shortages, with depleted aquifers and dry aqueducts. The energy problem is related to that of global warming; the Sierra Club voted it as the number one issue worldwide. We can shift to a safer cleaner energy future by smart energy solutions such as “clean car” (more efficient cars), energy efficiency with renewable sources like wind power, solar power, bioenergy, geothermal energy, hydropower, and stopping our dependence on nuclear, coal, and oil.

Mark Hertzgaard (author of Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search of Our Environmental Future) talks about a “global green deal,” and states that not only could we reduce the impact on our air, water, and other natural systems, but we could make money doing so. He also comments that: 1) We have no time to lose; water scarcity, climate change, and species extinction are getting worse, and faster. 2) Poverty is a central problem; four billion of the earth’s six billion are inconceivably deprived, and as they strive to improve their condition, our environmental footprint will expand with the need for more cars, more computers, and more everything. 3) We have the technology to solve the situation. We can work more efficiently, do more with less. We urge cool cities. What about cool companies and cool cars as well?

What action can we take? Perhaps we can be more effective by working within a larger group. There are any number of groups which further environmental goals. I just returned from Washington D.C. as a member of the Alaska Wilderness League, lobbying Congress to protect Alaska’s wild lands. It gave me a more personal visual picture of Congress. We can also write, phone, email, or fax our senators and representatives (capitol switchboard 202-224-3121). We can write a Letter to the Editor, plant a tree, or grow a vegetable garden. The Central Valley Air Quality Coalition (CVAQ) is currently monitoring the San Joaquin Valley Air District’s plan to attain the federal standards for particulate matter. The Air District Board will be voting on this plan 9:00 A.M. April 30th. (Call 486-3279 for more information on how to get involved in CVAQ.) Our mayor is finally supporting greenhouse gas reductions with the idea of Fresno as a “cool city.” City and regional growth planning is being taken up by the Blueprint Roundtable (Call 233-4148). Groups like Revive the San Joaquin River (226-0733) and the San Joaquin River Parkway and Trust (248-8480) work continuously to protect the water, our river, and the riparian area. (Richard Sloan will be working with volunteers to clean up the river on Earth Day, 9:00 to 4:00. Call 696-2971 to join him.) There is always a need for volunteers. So, let’s shrink our environmental footprint: walk more, ride less, buy less, recycle more, save water and energy, save paper, save animals and species, save agricultural land and parks, save habitat, forests and wilderness.

Go to a park, a hilltop, a river, meadow, or even your garden to celebrate inwardly for this unique planet, a planet with amazing diversity, incredible beauty, and the most intricate ecological web-of-life. Rachel Carson called her experience with the earth The Sense of Wonder. Author Barry Lopez (1998) wrote simply: “We have taken the most obvious kind of wealth from this continent and overlooked the more lasting, the more valuable and sustaining experience of intimacy with it, the spiritual dimension of a responsible involvement with this place.” Think of our great heritage of natural landscapes, our collection of public lands which belong to each of us as an American citizen. Think of what you have done and what you can still do to cherish and protect.