As we stare another Earth Day in the face, I have to honestly say that it makes me cringe. The symbolic value of April 22 has long ago waned, replaced by what essentially amounts to an annual PR stunt. Many environmental/sustainability professionals I know look on this day and the weeks leading up to it with a mixture of vexation and resignation. Too often, it’s an annoying distraction from the day in, day out hard work of actually making progress on the tough challenges we and our fellow life forms on Planet Earth face. Worse, by jumping on the band wagon and saving your big eco messaging push for the third week of April, you basically guarantee that your voice will be lost in big green glut of promotions, news articles, editorials, and other drum banging.
Many souls more eloquent than I have been sounding this concern for years.
The biggest problem with Earth Day is that it has become a ritual of sympathy for the idea of environmental sanity. Small steps, we’re told, ignoring the fact that most of the steps most frequently promoted (returning your bottles, bringing your own bag, turning off the water while you brush your teeth) are of such minor impact (compared to our ecological footprints) that they are essentially meaningless without larger, systemic action as well. The strategy of recycling as a gateway drug — get them hooked on it and we can move them on to harder stuff — has failed miserably. We can do better.
Put in 2010 terms, Earth Day has become equivalent to clicking “Like” next to a Facebook post. By reducing the very real risks our biosphere faces into a single day of “awareness,” it kind of implies that everyone can go back to business as usual the other 364 days a year. Even more revolting, now that the day has been over taken by marketing and advertising, it reinforces the idea that green is a “trend,” something that will go the way of the Pet Rock.
Now, I’m all for environmental education, and we can thank the original Earth Day and the change in mindset it helped elicit for bringing ecological issues to the fore, resulting in landmark achievements like the Clean Air Act. But I’m just sayin’ – if we want eco consciousness to be part of every day existence, isn’t it time to start acting that way?
Maybe I’ll spend this week wishing John Muir a happy birthday and look forward to Arbor Day.
