Earth Day 2006
Family efforts to protect the planet can make a difference.
Elizabeth May

As we approach the 36th official observance of Earth Day on April 22, 2006, I think back to my first Earth Day. In 1970, I was in Grade 10 and organized an ecology club in my high school. “Ecology” was a new word then. We didn’t have government departments of the environment. Pressure was building for action against pollution. In 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught fire. Lake Erie was declared dead.

In other words, things seemed bleak.

But things changed. People organized. Earth Day was a major event.

Governments responded to public pressure. Streams and rivers were cleaned up. Air pollution from factories was reduced. The United Nations held a major global summit on the human environment in Stockholm in 1972 and within a few years every government had departments of the environment. New laws to control pollution were passed. DDT was banned. Phosphates in detergents, the major cause of the collapse of oxygen in Lake Erie, were banned and the life of Lake Erie came back.

I share this now as it is obvious to anyone who is paying attention that we are in real trouble on planet Earth. The build-up of greenhouse gases is causing fundamental shifts in global climate, resulting in retreating glaciers, melting ice caps, increased severe weather events, and threats to species around the world. Toxic contamination has not gone away. It has become more subtle. It is pervasive, beginning in the womb. Things are bleak.

But, once again, things can change. The challenges of the 21st Century are different than those of 30 years ago. Our ecological crisis then was of a more local scale. Streams that were polluted; communities choked with smoke. We added scrubbers to smokestacks, catching some of the more visible pollution, but letting the greenhouse gases keep pumping into the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide did not create any local pollution problems, but it has now built up to such an extent that it is impacting global weather systems. Our new challenges are global, although many of the solutions are local.

As parents, we have a particular responsibility to be the force that insists on change. We need to apply all those time-worn lessons of the early days
of the environmental movement. We need to sign petitions, join environmental groups, call our city councillors and write to our MPs.

We can make changes at home, involving our children in the process of reducing the environmental impact. Nourishing a sense of personal power is an indispensable life skill. Learning that we all make a difference is a critical lesson for children. So urging your children to be responsible is good for their own personal growth and it also helps the environment. Taking responsibility to carry a can to recycling, to turn off lights as they leave a room, or to start a backyard compost is important at many levels. Leaving the car in the drive and walking or biking to the store is good for physical fitness and the planet.

Encourage your children to develop habits of good citizenship. Writing a letter to the Premier to express concern about loss of endangered species due to urban sprawl can help your child learn about democracy, and may also teach the Premier something! Letters to the editor of the local newspaper can also make you and your child proud of your efforts.

The main message of Earth Day has always been that we can make a difference. The process can be joyful, participatory and positive. Your family’s efforts to protect the planet can make a difference, this year and into the future.

Elizabeth May, O.C., is a leading environmentalist and executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada. Visit the Sierra Club at www.sierraclub.ca.