Earth Day?  What is Earth Day?  One day out of the year when we should think about the Earth?  I don’t like the meaning of this event begun 39 years ago by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson as a “day”.  I’m sure I like the images evoked in my mind and the call to action which I believe was his intent. 

In my very short life, I have been lucky enough to see the Alps and the Andes,  the highest lake in the world, the Grand Canyon, deserts and rainforests.  I have ridden a horse across the Argentine pampas and walked among majestic California redwoods.  In the wild I have seen many birds, from soaring condors in South America to bald eagles in Alaska.  I have seen the miracle of the swallows returning to Capistrano and the less awe-inspiring but nonetheless wonder of a chick breaking out of an egg.  I have seen the blurred wings of humming birds and bees.  I have seen beavers making dams to provide homes for themselves and habitat for other animals.  I have seen pheasants, turkeys, bears, cougars, moose, whales and spawning salmon.  I have seen animals give birth and my son being born.  While I have not seen all of what the earth has to offer, I believe I have seen a fair sampling of the majesty of my maker.

I have seen a great city from the top of the Eiffel Tower and the top of the world from Machu Picchu.  I have lived in a water-powered, working grist mill and seen men set foot on the moon.  I have seen man cure pestilence and disease, take organs from one human and put them in another.  I have seen animals exactly duplicated by science.  I have seen man split the atom to create energy and bombs.  I have seen the ingenuity of man. 

I have watched my native city, Miami, turn from a paradise, verdant with the growth of all manner of citrus fruit, avocados, strawberries, mangoes, beans, corn and tomatoes into a sprawling urban nightmare of houses and traffic. I have seen the gin-clear waters of Biscayne Bay and the Gulf turn cloudy with phosphate and algae and the Miami River turn into a sewer of shame.  I have witnessed signs being put on public beaches declaring them unsafe for swimming.  I have seen the earth scarred by vast strip mines that pollute entire regions and flown over rainforests that no longer exist.  I have witnessed first hand the arrogance and greed of man.

I am bombarded daily by media that trumpet the statistics of disaster where lack of clean water is killing children by the millions, lack of food is being used as a weapon of genocide, and climatic change is wreaking havoc in biblical proportions.  I am numbed and made apathetic.  I go to dinner.

I am witnessing a drama to which we hope no final chapter has been written.  I see flickers of hope in people taking canvas bags to the grocery store, trying to recycle their household goods and, in general, talking about the current state of the environment and how we can stop this race toward communal suicide.  I see the human race of the entire world begging for the vacuum of leadership to be filled with a conscious plan to save ourselves and the wonder, beauty and abundance of the earth.

We are finally beginning to recognize that the earth is an island with a finite ability to sustain the insatiable thirst, hunger and comfort of its human population.  We are finally coming to the grim reality that the world is, indeed, at a tipping point and that if action is not taken, we will fall one way into irreparable chaos and misery or, if we act, we might just fall the other way and insure our environmental legacy for generations to come.  We are finally beginning to realize that being out of sync with our environment is not an option.

The earth is not an array of separate bio-systems but, rather, a connected organism of all the parts.  When Amazon forests disappear for the planting of sugar cane and soy beans, they bleed red clay into the ocean and the world finds it a little more difficult to breath.

When nations, both mature and nascent, do not understand that as population grows, the resources of the world become a common wealth, then their greed poisons our children.

If we, as a global community, do not take responsibility for the unsustainable growth in population, there will come a day when all will thirst, all will hunger and many will die.

If Earth Day is simply a day to bear all this in mind, then, like going to church on Sunday and sinning the rest of the week, it is too little, too late.  If anything, Earth Day should be a day to recognize that every day is a day to THINK about what we are doing … ACT by doing what we know is right, and … DEMAND, first of ourselves, then of those in our sphere of influence, and finally our elected officials, on every level, to do what we know is right.

We would do well to remember that as we have created the current crisis, individually we can’t change much of anything, but we can all do something.  Together, we can change everything.

Chris Belland
Love Your Island Co-Chair