| It kind of cracks me up that we have to have "Earth Day." It's like "Black History Month" and "Women's Studies." The reason why we don't have a white history month or men's studies is because the other 11 months of the year ARE white history month, and presumably because much of the rest of any curriculum IS men's studies. Likewise, the other 364 days of the year most of us treat the earth like crap. The on one day a year we honor it while large corporations use the opportunity for some first class greenwashing (often framed as "corporate responsibility").
I'm not pointing the finger at individuals because I think that it's corporate, government, and policy change that is necessary to really turn the corner on environmental reform. It's not just people buying plug-in hybrids and solar panels - it's government investing in bike paths and high speed rail and municipal public transportation. It's not just vegetarians and locavores, but government banning factory farms, allowing city dwellers to raise backyard chickens, and changing its commodity subsidies to encourage farmers to grow healthier foods and do so organically. We've got a long way to go.
For a fantastic Earth Day retrospective, I recommend checking out Leslie Hatfield's piece on Huffington Post, A Revolution is Growing. She interviews several influential people in the food movement on their highlights of the past year and where they think we need to go next. |
