Earth Day: Past, Present, and Future

Every April 22nd since 1970, humanity has come together for a special day to celebrate our collective home. Earth Day has reached its forty-fourth anniversary and its importance has never been higher. Started by peace activists, and adopted by a Democratic Senator, Earth Day has become an active period of participation in almost every country. Communities, cities, and countries all over the world have activities to teach their citizens the importance of taking care of the only planet we can currently live on. The Earth Day website claims that in 2012 over a billion people were apart of deeds and efforts to conserve the environment. But meer educational seminars and picking up trash at a local park isn’t enough.

Everyday an Earth Day:

The amount of activism and awareness produced by Earth Day alone cannot stop the fatal tide of climate change. As Lazy Activism has already covered, climate change is very much real, and denying the issue only hurts humanity’s chance of surviving in the future. But Earth Day 2014 is accompanied by real progress toward taking the steps needed to curb manmade, destructive behavior in the future. Renewable energies have never been cheaper and this is being noticed by many countries.
France gets 75% of its electricity from nuclear power and has the world’s lowest carbon emissions in relation to GDP. Costa Rica brags that it will be the world’s first carbon neutral country as soon as 2021. There is also Iceland, which plans to use 100% renewable energy by 2050. Not to be outdone, Sweden wants to become the first oil free country by 2020. These are all amazing goals and strides forward, but there are some caveats. Unless there are major breakthroughs in the science and technology of renewable energies, large industrial countries like the U.S., China, and Russia will have a very hard time becoming carbon neutral.

There are those that have stakes in destructive energies that see new forms of energy, such as solar and wind, as competition and try their hardest to stymie their advancements, but the free market will hopefully be the judge of who will energize the future.

If the market does not pick renewable energies than governmental action will be needed. Many people think the economy is the biggest issue for governments to fix, but what good is having a steady job when climate change related calamities are affecting the Earth? There needs to be comprehensive legislation to ensure that America, as well as the rest of the world, respectively, surge into the future with sustainable tactics in mind.

One would think that taking care of the Earth would be beneficial to all mankind, and thus supported by every politician. This is, of course, not the case in America. The National Journal has revealed that not a single Republican has said the words “Earth Day” in the Senate or House since 2010. It should not fall to a single party, or a single country to enact meaningful policy changes that could help stave off the negative effects of climate change.

The World At Large:

For more Earth Days to occur, humanity needs to come together to clean up this planet before it becomes obsolete. People can do simple tasks such as taking shorter showers, buying energy efficient appliances, and driving their cars less. With the advent of electric cars and solar panels fitted for homeowner’s roofs becoming widely, and cheaply, available there is hope that trends of sustainability take hold.

Here are some other practical, more in-depth, solutions to achieve sustainability:

• Rainwater collection systems,
• Compost kits,
• Gray water filtration,
• Bike riding for local transportation.

Weaning ourselves off of foreign, dirty energy sources will help the atmosphere as well as hurt certain unsavory oil producing nations. This can also lead to America becoming the pioneer in research and manufacturing of renewable energy technologies. A boost to the economy while saving the planet seems like a real win win.

There are many domestic projects that can be undertaken as well to use less and save more. Fixing our energy infrastructure reduces spillage of harmful materials into the world as well as providing means to efficiently obtain such materials. Any step to reduce carbon emissions is a good step. America needs to hold itself to a high standard even if other countries won’t. History is clear in the fact that winning ideas become lasting ones. Let’s hope that for future Earth Days, America is leading the way.

Climate Change: Go Down Swingin’

In the Northeast the cold seems to finally be subsiding, giving way to warmth and Spring. Many would think such a prolonged and bitter Winter is proof that global warming is overblown or incorrect. It should be clear by now that global warming makes seasons more intense instead of eliminating any cold weather all together.

Yet, there is a still a large portion of the United States population, and elected officials, that have made up their minds: “It’s cold out, the seasons are acting normally”.

It’s odd, you would think most of those people are used to believing in something thats not always seen. Such denials are so widespread and evident that there must be tons of scientific and scholarly research to back up such claims. Of course there is not. The graph below shows just how harmonious the academic community is in regards to global warming.

Evidence Over Intuition:

Science thrives on disagreement and revision, but that does not exist in the field of climate change. Business Insider details how the graph that proves such a notion was constructed.

The creator, James Powell, is an MIT-trained geochemist, college professor, and served as a member of the National Science Board under Reagan and Bush Sr. His methodology encapsulated searching for all published studies in 2013 that mention keywords like “climate change” and “global warming” which yielded 10,885 papers. Of over ten thousand papers, only two from 2013 stated that global warming wasn’t a man made problem. Those sort of numbers are staggering. As Business Insider puts it, that’s a split of 99.99-.01%. You hear of disputes in the scientific community over these subjects, but that is a downright lie meant to coerce the gullible into avoiding the facts. Science has made up its mind.

Too Big To Deny:

In the past decade, Hollywood has produced enough movies depicting a post-apocalyptic Earth that one should have no trouble conjuring up the images of barren wastelands. In a study funded-but not endorsed by- NASA, author Safa Motesharrei makes the claim that our society is facing the same collapse scenarios that brought down the great empires of the past. It is known how certain societies like the Roman Empire and the Mayans came to their end but now a model has been constructed to show us our future.

All complex societies are impermanent and their destruction is based off of an imbalance. According to Motesharrei there are two key issues that cause societal collapse. They are the “stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity” and the “economic stratification of society into Elites and Masses” (as a side note, the methodology is fascinating and is worth checking out).

The wealth gap will be covered extensively in the future but the resource crisis needs immediate review. If a society cannot feed itself in the present with no viable technology to produce food in the future, than disintegration is imminent. Global warming’s disastrous effects on arable farm land, impact on animal species as part of ecosystems, and reliance on cheaper, more unhealthy methods of food production, fits this resource scare perfectly.

The end times are not here yet because the study does not give a timetable, but don’t get complacent. The paper insists that it is not too late to change our ways and ward off extinction. This is far more possible to humans in 2014 than previous generations because of our abundance of technology. History repeats itself but we can ward off past mistakes by inventing, investing, and invigorating the scientific community to keep humans prospering into the future.

It is in this arena that America can once again lead the world. While we are behind other advanced countries in measures of sustainability, it is not too late. The tides have been turning lately, perfectly setting up President Obama to push for another legacy project. Russian aggression leads to avoiding foreign oil. Consumer demands for cleaner food helps put resources in perspective. Clean energy sources have never been cheaper. America has rescued the world before when calamity struck, lets hope we do so again before it’s too late. For the deniers out there, why not go down swinging?