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Ever since Earth Day was first celebrated in 1970, the event has adapted to the environmental issues of the times.
During its inaugural year, 20 million people across the U.S. attended teach-ins and learned about the quality of the nation's water. Months earlier, coastal Santa Barbara had experienced an oil spill, while Time photographs had brought the fires of Ohio's Cuyahoga River to the country's attention. The teach-ins prompted widespread awareness of the pollution, and within the year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was formed. Passage of the Clean Water Act followed in 1972.
Growing up in the ‘80s, I remember my Earth Days being filled with VHS tapes about acid rain and "Save the Rainforest!" craft projects. I watched commercials about cutting off the lights and 3-2-1 Contact episodes about the ozone layer. In my college years, these activities turned into attending films about seed patents and lectures on the Greenhouse Gas Effect.
On this Earth Day, for me, the event still seems to be about climate change. Global warming is happening, and there's plenty of evidence to indicate this reality, from rapidly heating oceans to nutritionally depleted food chains. Its anthropogenic sources seem evident — the NASA model featured below, representing a year's worth of CO2 emissions, clearly shows the global north pumping out plumes of the gas.
Yet, despite now being an ideal moment to discuss our warming planet, state governments recently have been censoring all mentions of the predicament.
Last month, whistleblowers admitted that Florida's governor, Rick Scott, has prohibited Department of Environmental Protection officials from using the terms "climate change" or "global warming."1 A few weeks ago, in Wisconsin, the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands voted 2-to-1 to ban all work on or discussions about manmade climate disruption.2 Although these states are exposed to the effects of global warming, their officials are now prohibited from even mentioning the term.
But at the same time these discussions are being outlawed in capitol buildings, scientists are pursuing solutions in the lab. Since the emergence of these censorship measures, for example, researchers have announced the development of an artificial photosynthetic device that can trap carbon dioxide emissions and transform the CO2 into useful chemicals with solar power.3 The innovative hybrid design aims to both tackle current levels of CO2 and offer alternatives to fossil fuel-derived products.
Amidst a setting of silence on vital environmental issues, scientific breakthroughs like this can speak volumes. After the Montreal Protocol phased out chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) globally in 1989, more than a quarter of a century passed before the ozone layer showed signs of recovery.4 On this Earth Day, a day of awareness, it's important to remember that our response to climate change will require ingenuity and persistence, and that this begins with joining together and talking about the planet's challenges.
Media credit: High-resolution computer model of carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere was created and made available by NASA Goddard.
1. Korten, T. "In Florida, Officials Ban Term ‘Climate Change.'" Florida Center for Investigative Reporting. March 8, 2015.
2. Hayes, C. "WI Agency Bans Mention of Climate Change." MSNBC. April 9, 2015.
3. Liu C, Gallagher JJ, Sakimoto KK, Nichols EM, Chang CJ, Chang MC, & Yang P (2015). Nanowire-Bacteria Hybrids for Unassisted Solar Carbon Dioxide Fixation to Value-Added Chemicals. Nano Letters PMID: 25848808
4. Sullivan, G. "Earth's Ozone Layer is Recovering." The Washington Post. September 11, 2014.
