In honor of Earth Day things seem to be looking up for those who care about the environment, wildlife and the rapid warming of our planet. Where Earth Day celebrations have traditionally focused on volunteer trash cleanup at local beaches and parks, the effort this year has gone global.
After six years of government suppression of scientists’ findings on climate change, it is no longer considered unpatriotic to acknowledge rising temperatures, melting glaciers, rising sea levels and more intense tropical storms. Calls for mitigation on a national scale are coming from patriotic business leaders and economists as well as environmentalists.
New books from predictable sources like Bill McGibbon share recognition with those by retired military leaders Gen. Anthony Zinni and others. “The News Hour” with Jim Lehrer on PBS hosts a six-part series on global warming.
Adding to a public call to action, a string of recent federal court rulings has gone against Bush administration environmental policies, proof, critics say, that the White House regularly circumvents laws designed to protect the nation’s air, water, forests and wildlife.
In probably the most sweeping decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on April 2 that the Environmental Protection Agency couldn’t opt out of controlling carbon dioxide emissions, a major component of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. The agency has maintained the Clean Air Act did not authorize it (or the states) to regulate emissions from cars.
Some of the other decisions favored endangered fish. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected administration plans to balance endangered salmon runs against federally owned hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River. A U.S judge in Seattle ruled the administration illegally suppressed and misrepresented views of dissenting scientists when it eased logging restrictions designed to protect salmon under the Northwest Forest Plan.
Meanwhile, a federal judge in San Francisco tossed out new administration rules that allowed states to seek logging and other commercial projects in roadless areas of national forests. Courts also struck a blow against mountaintop coal mining in West Virginia, efforts to avoid EPA emissions standards for brick and ceramics kilns and bureaucratic foot dragging on the listing of new threatened and endangered species.
Public support for at least one species was extraordinary. A campaign by the Natural Resources Defense Council to save polar bears generated 500,000 petitions (a record) to list the polar bear as endangered due entirely to melting ice sheets on which they depend for hunting seals, their main food source.
Appealing to the idealism of young people, singer Sheryl Crow joins environmental activist Laurie David touring 10 universities in two weeks, traveling the southeastern U.S. in a bio-diesel bus urging students to join the movement to stop global warming.
The tour concludes on Earth Day at George Washington University with special guests Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Carole King and Robert Kennedy Jr. The following day, Crow and David will take the message to Congress that Americans want immediate action to freeze and then reduce carbon emissions. The Stop Global Warming Virtual March is now covered on the MSN network of 465 million users.
A stark United Nations panel report was the strongest assessment yet of Earth’s warming, predicting water shortages that could affect billions of people and a rise in ocean levels that could go on for centuries. According to the Los Angeles Times, scientists involved in the report have voiced concern that the analysis isn’t strong enough.
Backing up scientific data on rising temperatures are firsthand accounts by career mountain climbers, a few of them geologists, of vanishing glaciers, crumbling rock formations and flooding lakes formed by melting ice. Notable among members of the American Alpine Club, meeting in Bend, Ore. last week, is surfer and climber Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, Inc. the greenest of outdoor gear and clothing companies.
“I personally have done a bunch of ice climbs around the world that no longer exist,” he said. “I was aghast at the change.”
Continuing the momentum well past Earth Day are business leaders determined to solve the thorny problems of producing and distributing alternative fuels. Sun Microsystems founder and venture capitalist Vinod Khosla has invested millions in biotech companies pursuing strategies to produce biofuels without using corn and other food crops, which are already destabilizing food prices worldwide. And, to its credit, the U.S. Energy Department awarded $385 million in grants to six cellulosic ethanol projects. These use enzymes from genetically engineered microbes to break down the woody branches and stems of everything from switch grass to straw.
Anyway, these projects will last way beyond beach, storm drain and roadside clean up, all worthy of our efforts. And personal choices in transportation, recycling and using recycled products and replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents will have significant effects on climate.
Earth Day is simply here to remind us of what we can and must do to preserve the planet and all its creatures for our children.