April 22 (Saturday last) was a rather special day; it was dedicated to the Earth. Earth Day is an annual worldwide event designed to celebrate the planet and raise environmental awareness.
The day has its roots in 1970, proposed by the then Senator of Wisconsin, Gaylord Nelson. The idea was inspired by the devastating oil spill in Santa Barbara, California and about 20 million people in the United States participated. Since then, the movement has only grown. By 1990, Earth Day had expanded to other countries, specifically, 141 countries with 10 times as many people as it started with, and by 2000, there were 5000 environmental groups taking part from 184 countries. Today, about a billion people participate.
This year’s Earth Day saw scientists and science enthusiasts alike becoming political. In light of the recent election of US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly denied climate change and proposed to cut funding for many environmental agencies, the scientific community took to the streets to make their concerns heard. At the event, one of the speakers, scientist Bill Nye stated: “Today, we have a great many lawmakers – not just here but around the world – deliberately ignoring and actively suppressing science.”
Unsurprisingly, the Earth Day campaign for 2017 was “Environmental and Climate Change Literacy”, and about 600 marches were run under the theme. Although most of the marches will be dubbed “anti-Trump”, there is a larger message underlying them – the function of science is to improve humanity, but if it is not enabled to do so through law and policy, then it cannot. The people in power are the ones who affect these policies. The aim of the protests and activities on Earth Day 2017 was to educate. The Earth Day Network said, “Education is the foundation for progress. We need to build a global citizenry fluent in the concepts of climate change and aware of its unprecedented threat to our planet. We need to empower everyone with the knowledge to inspire action in defence of environmental protection. Environmental and climate literacy is the engine not only for creating green voters and advancing environmental and climate laws and policies but also for accelerating green technologies and jobs.”
These ideas can be translated into a Guyanese context. What are the threats to our environment? What are the stances of the politicians to these threats? What are the potential environmental impacts of the upcoming oil rig? Of course, though, we shouldn’t just be concerned with our own country. Every thing is related and interconnected. We all share the Earth. The extinction of one species of fish could cause the death of millions of birds, and the melting of ice caps could cause the flooding of our coastlines. Although we cannot possibly see all the direct ramifications and we might not even be able to see how climate change will specifically affect us, it does not mean that it won’t, and it definitely doesn’t mean that we should do nothing about it.
