Earth Day 2023

[begreen]

Earth Day 2023

Every April 22nd, stakeholders of all backgrounds come together to advance sustainability and climate action in commemoration of Earth Day.
Our world needs transformation. It’s time for the people of the world to hold governments and the private sector accountable for their role in our environmental crisis while also calling for bold, creative, and innovative solutions. This will require action at all levels, from business and private investment to city, state, and national government.
That’s where you come in: as an individual, you yield real power for change through your influence as a consumer, a voter, and a community member.
Don’t underestimate your power. When your voice and actions are united with millions of others around the world, we can create an inclusive and impactful movement that is impossible to ignore.

This Earth Day and Year we can all help by:
Planting a tree
https://www.earthday.org/campaign/the-canopy-project/
Stop plastics pollution
https://www.earthday.org/campaign/end-plastic-pollution/
Consuming less
https://www.minimalismmadesimple.com/home/consume-less/
Fight fast fashion with sustainable clothing
https://www.earthday.org/campaign/sustainable-fashion/
Promote climate and environmental literacy
https://www.earthday.org/.../climate-environmental-literacy/
Use the power of voting to bring about meaningful change
Vote Earth!
For more information: https://www.earthday.org/earth-day-2023/

"Man's attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we have now acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature. But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself. We are challenged as mankind has never been challenged before to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves."

Rachel Carson - 1962

 

[semipro]

Every time I see photos of life in urban areas prior to the early 70s and the haze that seems to hang everywhere, I'm reminded of how environmental awareness and activism, including events like Earth Day, have really had a positive impact on our ecosystem and human quality of life.
Unrelated (maybe), you also can't help but notice how many fewer overweight people there were then.

 

[begreen]

Yes, rivers haven't caught fire since the EPA was formed either.

 

[KDubU]

Yes there has been some progress but a lot more needs to be done. Take the plastics as an example, the use is through the roof compared to 25-30yrs ago and it’s evident everywhere. Most plastic is not recycled, most goes into landfills or better, incinerators. Ditch the plastic should be a mantra.

 

[woodgeek]

Every time I see photos of life in urban areas prior to the early 70s and the haze that seems to hang everywhere, I'm reminded of how environmental awareness and activism, including events like Earth Day, have really had a positive impact on our ecosystem and human quality of life.
Unrelated (maybe), you also can't help but notice how many fewer overweight people there were then.

Yup. Back in the 70s, science outreach and public activism started science driven processes that would (eventually) bring two great evils to heel. First, the tobacco companies selling their carcinogenic wares. Second, the fossil companies pushing unchecked consumption and emissions and pollution. Both driven by the very clear harm they did to the human health of many/most americans.

50 years later we can see that rates of lung cancer have peaked and are falling dramatically, as are deaths from NOx, Benzene and particulates, etc. Not to mention the Ozone hole.

And also back in the 70s, scientific understanding and outreach on the role of modern food products on human health was also present (McGovern Commission and others) but the results were ultimately retracted from the public record under political pressure. An army of scientists were then recruited to create paid-for BS studies that say that XYZ junk food is actually AOK (usually by showing that it is 'better' than some more harmful food, like with 'low tar cigarettes'). And under that smoke screen the way we eat has radically changed over the last 50 years, along with surges in obesity, heart disease and diabetes.

And now life expectancies in the US are actually dropping for the first time, while other western countries are still increasing. Despite us spending more on health care per capita than any other country. An army of $$$ doctors fighting a wave of disease and death that is caused by malnutrition, doctors who in general have less than 20 hours of nutrition training in med school, and give little to no dietary advice to their sick patients.

Will big food ever be brought to heel?