Yup.
Today is Earth Day.
Today is a day to do buzz-feed quizzes about which endangered animal you are most like on the Google homepage.
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| But the earth doesn't have brains. Oh wait - that's us... which direction are we going and who is steering? |
Now before I go on, I really do understand the purpose of 'days' and it's great that the environment (you know, that thing we are part of and depend on for our continued existence) has #EarthDay and is trending on twitter. It means that millions of people have thought "Oh it's Earth Day today" and maybe they have done the quiz and given a few moments to thinking "What is a Komodo Dragon?". It's better than nothing; it's good that we are giving the Earth a bit of attention en (virtual) masse.
Earth Day is a great idea to raise the profile of... the Earth. There has been a lot of important work on trying to find a path through the horrifying statistics and to attempt to deal with ecology and climate change in a way that creates connections and not disconnected shame-spirals when faced with extinction, deforestation and pollution. Earth Day is part of that - celebrating the victim (the planet) rather than criticising the actions of the perpertrator (us) suggest positive action rather than self-flagellation.
And you could say we are beginning to move in the right direction. Thanks to endeavours like Earth Day (as an addition to scientific development and mass media) the world is gradually starting to realise that man made acceleration of climate change is not scientific opinion but scientific fact and that if we don't do something about it our grandchildren will have a shit-storm of a future.*
But I'm pissed off.
Earth Day pisses me right off.
On days other than today, I have written a bit on environmental issues through the stories on my story-blog (click here to be taken to a prettier and less angry place) with the aim to imaginatively engage folks with environmental issues, but not today. Today I'm writing a blog in My Angry Voice.
*If you are a UKIP politician (or similar) who believes that climate change is a myth and that if we try to tackle carbon production, the plants will suffocate please stop reading this blog and spend the time researching the facts of man's impact on the planet.
Problems I have with Earth Day Number 1:
Not another 'Day'
Earth Day means nothing.
It's been around since 1969 and it means nothing because virtually every day on the calendar is a day for something. Having a Day doesn't make the issue particularly important. Everything seems to have a special day. On April 19th, for example, it was National Garlic Day in the UK and twitter was full of garlic loving chefs tweeting recipes and vampire-fanatics tweeting tongue in cheek captions alongside images of their favourite teenage vamps. So the Earth is as important as garlic, pirates or hugging your plumber. We have an overload of Days people. Earth Day fades into a long list of Days we are supposed to think about.
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| Twinkly vampire appears at local Garlic Day celebration. |
What do you do on Earth Day??
But maybe an even bigger reason Earth Day means nothing, is that we have no idea what to do. On Garlic Day you can buy some garlic, cook with garlic or scare off a vampire. But what do you do on a day to celebrate the entire Earth? Hallmark isn't helping either. Thousands of pounds & dollars are pumped into turning trees into Mother's Day, Father's Day even Secretary's day cards, but there is no card big enough to give to the planet so what do we do? Balloons? Chocolates? Roses? Maybe we could just cook a special dinner?
So we don't do anything. No. Worse than that. We do the Google quiz then behave just the way we do when it's not Earth Day.
On Earth Day 2015, we killed off 147 species of animal, plant and insect species. We destroyed 81,000 acres of tropical rainforest. We pumped 27123287.67 into the Earth's atmosphere, land and seas. Uncounted sea birds were choked on our plastic and uncounted elephants, rhinos, tigers and giraffes were killed for medicines, fashion and thrills.
That's the equivalent of someone thinking fondly about their Mum is on Mother's Day before murdering her cocker spaniel, cutting up her treasured photos and telling her she sucks donkey cocks whilst taking a crap on her prize sunflowers.
What's the point in Earth Day if we spend Earth Day destroying the Earth?
Problems I have with Earth Day Number 3:
If you need a day, something is very, very wrong.
If an international day of recognition or awareness is needed, it is usually because something is wrong, unequal or is in desperate need of funding. An official day can raise awareness (e.g. Autism Awareness Day), raise money (e.g. Red Nose Day) and even force us to face tough truths and issues (e.g. World Aids Day). These days are important and play a role in transforming society, cultures and attitudes.
But I'd like to clue you into a secret: if a day is needed then, something is seriously wrong.
Children's Day, for example, is only needed because internationally and historically children are the most vulnerable and helpless members of the world and they have been (and still are being) abused and taken advantage of the world over. Children's Day was not created to celebrate the innocence and beauty of the developing child, but to try and encourage us to treat them humanely (everyone's children that means - not just our own). Human Right's Day exists because of the constant violation of human rights. World Aids Day exists because the disease exist, not in celebration of the eradication of the disease.
International Women's Day is a brilliant thing that I am proud to be a part of, but I wish we didn't need a day to celebrate women. If women were respected across the world on a day-to-day basis, we would not need a day. If women were not being abused on a daily basis, we wouldn't need IWD.
If we weren't messing up the Earth, we wouldn't need Earth Day.
Now, there is no problem having a day to try to turn history's losers into today's winners (or at least joint winners) but a 'Day' is a useful tactic not a victory parade. IWD will play a part in a move towards healing, but it is not medicine in itself - one day a year cannot heal thousands of years of oppression.
A day is pointless unless it creates change. Red Nose Day without fundraising and an infrastructure to channel those funds is just a bunch of self-indulgent celebrities wearing silly noses; Aids Awareness day without education and fundraising is pointless; Earth Day without every-day action is pointless.
Problems I have with Earth Day: Number (3)
The Earth as The Other.
This is the last problem and it's the big one. Earth Day is just too much. It's like having "International Human Day" - what do you do with that? International Human Rights day makes sense and the lesser known International Human Solidarity Day is still a bit more tangible, but the whole Earth? A whole planet?
I like to think of myself as a fairly imaginative individual, but I can't hold the Earth in my imagination! It's so big it becomes an abstract concept. Give me a specific animal, a disease, even an entire gender and I can work with it, but to take on the entire Earth? The inevitable result is a parade of photoshopped actualisations of metaphors that simplify complex issues into a easily tweetable packages.
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| "I've got the whole world in my hands" |
Our brains are not made to take in the entire planet so we simplify (at best) or shut down (at worst). If Earth Day is there to enable action and awareness, then it has to down-size and allow the individual to take on a bit at a time.
Because people the reality is that we are not holding the earth in our hands, we are part of the earth. We are to the earth what our brains are to our body.
No.
We are to the earth what a tiny part of our brains are to our body. We are the non-essential, beautiful and terrible bit of the earth's brain that can create a beautiful poem for a loved one on a good day and massacre a hundred innocents on a bad day. Right now, we are the cigarette smoking, self-hating, abusive, junk food gorging, parent torturing part of the Earth's brain. The longer we try to convince ourselves that we live on the Earth and not as part of the earth, the longer we will continue to destroy the earth and in doing so destroy ourselves.
Enough now.
I'm being a bit over-the-top I know. Earth day is essentially a positive idea and a great excuse to ditch SATs prep and plant a tree with the class. It's an opportunity to go for a walk with your kids and teach them the names of some wildflowers.
But I can't help but think that Earth Day is too much and too little and too late.
"What a great time to be alive because this generation gets to completely change this world"
The Venus Project
Useful links:
Teacher and writer Mac Macartney
New ways of living
Green Economics
Art and the environment
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