By Richard Heinberg, Post-Carbon Institute, April 22, 2020
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Earth Day in New York City, April 20, 1970 |
Editor's note: The following letter was sent to the subscribers of Resilience, the online magazine of the Post-Carbon Institute.
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April 22 was supposed to be a day of global celebration and protest. Fifty years ago, up to ten percent of Americans participated in thousands of local events on the first Earth Day. That mass action, which would have been widely commemorated this year, propelled early environmental policy victories that, in the U.S., included the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency (1970), as well as the passage of the Clean Water Act (1972) and the Endangered Species Act (1973).
But nature threw a curveball—a virus that has us all huddling indoors and physically distancing ourselves when we occasionally venture out for food or exercise. Instead of massing in parks and at city halls on a spring day, North American nature lovers will be clicking and swiping to attend online digital Earth Day events.
A revival of interest in this annual occasion was long overdue. The past five decades saw early policy successes fade gradually into an apathetic status quo. New regulations, passed in the 1970s up through the ’90s, had reduced sulfur dioxide pollution from coal power plants, cleaned up rivers, and greatly reduced the smog in big cities like Los Angeles. Pro-business commentators took this as evidence that the world’s environmental problems were essentially solved. But most pollution had just moved overseas to China and India, where so many of our products are now manufactured. On the whole, Earth is far more polluted today than it was in 1970. Indeed, so much plastic is accumulating in the oceans that, by 2050, it may outweigh all the fish.
During those same 50 years, populations of vertebrates (animals with backbones) declined by 60 percent on average. It’s been estimated that humans—along with our cattle, pigs, and other domesticates—now make up 96 percent of all terrestrial vertebrate biomass. The other four percent include all the songbirds, deer, foxes, elephants and on and on—all the world’s remaining wild land animals. We inherited a planet of astounding beauty, which we share with millions of amazing creatures—and, one by one, we’re crowding them out.
Meanwhile, climate change, the scariest environmental trend of all, has snowballed from a little-discussed theory to an impending global threat. In 1970, the average CO2 levels at Mauna Loa, where Charles Keeling was monitoring them, were 325 parts per million; last year they hit 419 ppm. The most recent decade was the warmest on record. Droughts, wildfires, and floods are becoming more frequent, severe, and costly. And, right up until the arrival of COVID19, carbon emissions were continuing to increase year by year.
In response, climate activism has mushroomed, and there have been more victories to celebrate—such as the divestment of many wealth funds from fossil fuel companies, and rapidly declining costs for renewable energy. Pipelines have been blocked by protesters and courts, and a global youth movement has coalesced to demand action from complacent governments. |
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