On this 56th edition of Earth Day, I feel compelled to reflect on how we got here, and where we are going. In many ways, it seems we have taken more steps backwards, especially recently, but I also see hope and promise, if we have the collective will.
How amazing, if not coincidental, that one of the images that inspired Earth Day was Earthrise, a view of Earth from the orbit of the Apollo 8 mission in 1968, a photo taken by astronaut Willam Anders. Fast forward to earlier this month, and images of our Blue Marble taken by the astronauts aboard the Artemis II mission leave us in awe all over again.
That awe needs to now translate to reverence, something fundamental to Indigenous cultures, and which has been nearly absent throughout the history of Western Civilization, replaced instead with fixation on attainment of gratuitous wealth, and increasing economic growth.
I was nine years old when the inaugural Earth Day occurred in 1970, too young to appreciate the fact that the major purpose of the celebration was to preserve the planet for future generations like mine. All I knew was that I loved going exploring, looking for insects, spiders, snakes, and other creatures that nobody else liked. Today, I cannot escape the observation that we treat whole sectors of humanity as badly as we do “bugs,” and sometimes even worse.
When did Homo sapiens first begin to imperil our one and only home? Some will point to the Quaternary megafauna extinctions of large mammals at the end of the Ice Age, 10,000 to 50,000 years ago. A good argument could be made that the Industrial Revolution, at least the second one, was the beginning of the holocaust. Widespread environmental damage was certainly accelerated by the burning of fossil fuels, which continues to this day.
Every human revolution magnifies the impact of the previous one, and so the Industrial Revolution led to an enormous increase in the scale of the Agricultural Revolution that preceded it. Machinery replaced draft animals, and permitted enormous plots of monoculture crops to be grown. The Third Industrial Revolution began to automate jobs that were not already outsourced to cheaper labor pools elsewhere, and the current Fourth Industrial Revolution is being defined by the widespread employment of artificial intelligence (AI) to replace most other functions in industry, business, and even the service economy. The end goal appears to be reducing most of humanity to the category of consumers, who take little part in the production of goods and services.
Overall, it appears that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are actually colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy, and racism, not necessarily in that order. There are certainly additional players, but here are your lead actors. They have all been behind conquest, war, famine, and death. Those four characteristics of human society must be extinguished if we are to have future Earth Days.
The good news is that more people are waking up to the realization that the systems of power, wealth, and governance are not working for them, or any other living thing, and that there are alternatives that are more just, participatory, and sustainable, or at least less damaging. There is renewed interest in permaculture and regenerative agriculture, for example. Community gardens, urban farming, food forests, and foraging are helping address food deserts in cities. Cooperatives and credit unions are looking a lot more humane, and less extractive, than corporations and banks.
Elevating Indigenous people, people of color in general, women, and other marginalized demographic categories into positions of power and leadership will help immensely in changing the trajectory of our world, for the betterment of all species. Priority must be given to enact change at a local scale, where experimentation is less risky, and results more immediate. There is zero room for politics, only teamwork.
Much as we may feel demoralized, replaceable with technology, and seemingly powerless to change any of it, we must begin living differently. Sometimes, that means dropping out of the systems that are destroying us. Your innovation and example are needed now more than ever.
