Published in the April 27 – May 10, 2016 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Mike Monroe
Morgan Hill Life file photo
Solimar Gonzalez, a teacher on special assignment at San Martin/Gwinn, teaches students about plants on Earth Day last year.
Every year since 1970, Americans have celebrated Earth Day. It is a day to pause and give back through some form of appreciation, some expression of our reverence and respect for our common home.
Our reflection on this national event can be manifested by participating in a litter clean-up, a tree planting event, or something as simple as just going outside for a picnic or walk to enjoy for a moment a nearby place of natural beauty. However you might want to honor our planet’s environment, just do it!
To celebrate this year’s Earth Day, we had a special tree planting ceremony April 23 at Anderson Lake County Park Visitor Center.
Earth Day, of course, should be celebrated everyday, but our lifestyles and preoccupations often cause us to ignore, or completely neglect, the health of our planet. Humans, especially in the past 150 years, have been taxing, punishing and brutal when it comes to the exploitation of our natural resources. The good news is that we are learning quickly how to better care for our natural world. My hope is that we have not pushed out wanton behavior too far.
Earth Day was an idea made concrete by U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin in 1969. There had been previous attempts at galvanizing a nationwide movement oriented toward addressing the increasing toll that mankind was, and still is in many ways, perpetrating upon the planet. The Sierra Club has been in existence since 1892, the Wilderness Society since 1935. Aldo Leopold wrote “A Sand County Almanac” in 1949 and Rachel Carson turned the chemical business world upside down with “Silent Spring” in 1962. The energy of the anti-Vietnam war movement of the 1960s was coalescing with a new national awareness about environmental degradation. This caused 20 million Americans to take to the streets and parks. They joined teach-ins and rallies to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment.
The result is that President Richard Nixon proposed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This government agency began operation Dec. 2, 1970. Soon thereafter, the Clean Air, the Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts all came into being.
Earth Day 2016’s theme is “Trees for the Earth” with the goal of over the next five years (to prepare for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day) participants plant 7.8 billion trees globally. This number is the estimated current world population. That’s a big number, but consider that we are losing more than 15 billion trees each year to deforestation. The “Trees for the Earth Campaign” addresses three big concepts: Trees and soil mitigate climate change and pollution; trees support biodiversity by minimizing habitat loss caused by land conversion and fragmentation; and trees support communities and livelihoods, especially in developing countries. Besides keeping our planet – and ourselves – healthy, trees are an integral part of our natural capital base.
In 1798, William Wordsworth wrote a poem called “Tintern Abbey” which includes one line that especially seems relevant for Earth Day: “Therefore I am still a lover of the meadows and the woods, and the mountains; and of all that we behold from this green earth; of all the mighty world of eye and ear, what we perceive; well pleased to recognize in nature and the language of our senses, the anchor of our purest thoughts, the guide, the guardian of our hearts and souls, and of our moral being.”
Keep on sauntering!
Mike Monroe is a business owner and naturalist. He is a docent for Santa Clara County Parks.
