Today is Earth Day, a day which I’ve had occasion to refer to in the past as “Stupid.”
I mean, originally it was a good idea. Now it’s a wishy-greenwashy way for your favorite local major corporation or fossil-fuel funded Congressperson to “participate” in doing absolutely nothing, other than to promote their self-aggrandizing “don’t litter” nonsense. Given the radical, and increasingly destructive, changes in weather we’ve been experiencing over the past 20 years, at this point it’s hard to keep track of how many lips are being paid for their service.
This extreme weather is an Omen. It’s an open window into the weather thirty years from now, a climate of extremes where the hot and dry seasons will be hotter and drier and the cold and wet seasons colder and wetter and hundreds of thousands– if not millions– of people will suffer and die. The scope of the near-term changes the world is facing is huge.
It’s not just the fault of TrumpCo, though they are on track to crash the climate even more quickly than it would have otherwise. During the Obama administration, I got to hear a story about someone who now has incurable cancer after her property was sprayed with insecticides by the National Forest Service. Round and round and round….
Earth Day almost immediately turned into a product, and when a movement becomes commodifiable, it loses its power. And “Every Day is Earth Day” has become silly now, too. Here we have Bayer (producer of deadly carcinogenic herbi/pesticide Round Up since having absorbed and greenwashed the odious Monsanto) celebrating Earth Day, informing us that “Every Day is Earth Day!” “Every Day is Earth Day” doesn’t mean that much any more, now, does it? Meanwhile my fucking boomer neighbors still spray Round-Up all over the Harris-Walz signs still rotting in their front yards. Happy Earth Day, have some more cancer.
Maybe it’s just me, but celebrating Earth Day at this point seems a little like hosting a Tupperware™ Party in your living room while your house is slowly filling with poison gas.
And that’s the whole point I’m trying to make: once you set aside a single day as “Earth Day,” it becomes a consumable, possessive, orderable thing, perfect for take-over. “Oooh, a new Google Doodle! I’ve done my duty to the ‘environment’ today by clicking it!”
“Every Day is Earth Day” means nothing any more. It’s an advertising cliche. It’s a banal, contentless slogan. If “every day” really was “Earth Day,” we wouldn’t be worried about Miami sinking into the Atlantic, or coral bleaching, or whether we’ll have enough safe water to drink NEXT YEAR.
But, this is to be expected. It doesn’t matter if we set aside one day or 365 days per year to “honor the Earth”– as long as the systems we’ve put into place continue to churn ahead with capital and efficiency and “growth” as the goal, there’s nothing we can do to stop the degradation of human existence other than doing our best to participate in our environment as harmlessly as possible in our own way.
The marriage of capital and “environmentalism” will always end in an abusive relationship, but by learning the skills needed to stay afloat in a sea of nonsense, and by fostering environments that practice those skills, we’ll be able to keep moving.
The “Earth” is the sum of every single biosystem that inhabits its sphere of influence. It isn’t just a “thing” that we set a day aside for. Every time we walk down the street, every time we breathe the air, every time we drive a car or fly in an airplane or watch TV or garden or whatever, the “Earth” is a system in which we’re participating.
So, instead of marking and marketing Earth Day this year, why don’t we try something different? Why don’t we find ten minutes every single day that we can set aside to actively participate in our own local biosystem? Doesn’t matter if it’s a big city, a yard, an apartment, the woods, a garden, the interior of a vehicle. Why don’t we take this ten minutes and consider:
- With whom do I share these surroundings? Plants? Animals? Insects? Other people?
- What kind of influences move over me and around me? Where is the weather coming from? Where is it going?
- What do my surroundings touch? Where are the rivers, mountains, lakes, forests, neighborhoods, bus lines? What do those things touch?
- How does what I am doing right now in my personal biosystem impact the greater whole?
- How can I best be kind to all of the members of my community?
We don’t have to make any decisions or do anything; that will come naturally as we begin participating in our biosystem. Instead, we have to try to understand our place within the whole system, and the influences and effects our actions have. This isn’t a “spiritual” thing (though it could certainly be if you wanted it to), it’s distinctly practical. It’s simply a matter of observing and paying attention before we interact. When you start to think this way, the idea of polluting a river or poisoning a weed or even pulling a so-called “invasive” from your yard will begin to seem absurd. You’ll start to question some basic assumptions, and begin making different choices.
Maybe if we all, each of us, took these small steps every day, we could finally get rid of this ridiculous Earth Day silliness and start actually doing something that will help us get through whatever is coming next, together.
Don’t celebrate Earth Day; mourn it. Mourn the fact that the things being said on Earth Day are just things being said, for 24 hours, a single day each year. Then, get out there and water your plants.