Come Friday, Earth Day turns 53. “Earth” is an anagram of “heart.” Which is appropriate since demonstrating our heartfelt love for the Earth ought to be on the top rung of everyone’s priority list. Earth, our home, and so far the only known place in the universe where thereare beating hearts, deserves—requires—our deepest affection. For our own sake and that of our offspring generations, every day should be treated like Earth Day. All too often, however, as shown by the seemingly relentless parade of bad environmental news, we humans don’t deliver on that.
Just a decade after the first Earth Day in 1970, along came Ronald Reagan, a president whose twisted views of something as obvious as old-growth forest preservation left environmental advocates aghast: “A tree is a tree, how many more do you need to look at?” Although expressed less moronically, he delivered similar views (as well as policies and top appointments) on public lands, pollution, the ozone hole, organic farming, global warming, advocates of renewable power sources and conservation, as well as on us laughable idealists whom he said wanted everyone to “freeze to death in the dark.”
Since then, the Republican Party, which once could boast numerous elected advocates of sound environmental policy, is now brimful of lawmakers eager to demolish or at least sabotage key environmental legislation enacted in the past half-century. Carrying out their donors’ desires, they obstruct, dilute, disinform, and pretend that burning fossil fuels doesn’t kill 8 million people around the planet every year and that protecting the world’s biodiversity should never stand in the way of a new subdivision or palm oil plantation. They treat even the mention of remedies for environmental injustices as a joke. But they are who they are. Or, as Donald Trump once said about the horrific COVID-19 death toll, “It is what it is.” Given who’s in the GOP’s 2022 candidate queue for Congress, it could be a lot more of what it is come January.
Rather than focus on these connivers and know-nothings, Earth Day, this 1 day out of 365, should be a time to renew our efforts in prompting the revolution in values and attitudes needed to deal with the climate and other environmental crises being inflicted on the planet. And also a time to celebrate environmental victories. Paying homage to what we’re doing right or are trying to do right is a healthy alternative to eco-negativity, personally and politically. Yes, there is plenty yet to do, on climate most especially. Yes, some environmental successes have been undermined. But let’s divert attention away from them until another day. Acknowledging that we have already made significant progress and continue to do so in big and small ways can invigorate our hopes and boost our determination to achieve still more in the face of daunting obstacles, most particularly in the form of dark money-funded foes.
Any fair-minded roster of positive environmental news would be miles long, but my list here is short and dedicated mostly to very recent stories, with the idea readers will offer examples of your own. Let’s start by taking note of eco-positive federal legislation and treaties enacted over the past half-century. It can be argued that some of this legislation didn’t go far enough and some isn’t enforced as well as it should be. That, however, doesn’t negate the fact that implementing these laws has cleaned up our air and water, protected much land from continued or new exploitation, helped the survival of species on the brink. removed poisonous emissions from power plants and tailpipes, and mandated improved waste treatment, among so many other things.
Environmental Legislation that continues to make a difference
• Wilderness Act of 1964 • National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 • National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 • Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act of 1972 • Clean Water Act of 1972 (amended 1990) • Ocean Dumping Act of 1972 • Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act of 1972 • Endangered Species Act in 1973 • Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 • Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of 1975 • Toxic Substances Control Act in 1976 • Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 • The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 • Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (Superfund) • Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 • Pollution Prevention Act of 1980 • Montreal Protocol of 1987 • Water Quality Act of 1987 • Medical Waste Tracking Act of 1988 • Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1989 • North American Wetlands Conservation Act of 1989 • Oil Pollution Act of 1990 •California Desert Protection Act of 1994 • Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996 • Roadless Area Conservation Rule of 2001 • Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007
It’s been 130 years since California condors have been seen in northern California. They were driven to near extinction, beginning with the arrival of Gold Rush settlers in the mid-19th century. With a wingspan of up to 10 feet, they are the largest flying bird on the continent. Hunting for sport, poisoning of meat to kill wolves and bears, and use of the now-banned pesticide DDT brought the population to just 22 California condors concentrated in central California by the 1980s. Their original range went from British Columbia to Baja California. Since then, about 300 have been released into the wild, but none in northern California. Now under the supervision of a member of the Yurok Tribe, four of the young birds—three males and a female—are soon to be released in a project that began in 2008.
Yurok Wildlife Department Director Tiana Williams-Claussen (center) releases a condor during a training in Big Sur.
The Yurok, with 6,200 enrolled members the largest tribe of Indigenous people in a state that once put a bounty on their scalps, call the bird prey-go-neesh, a sacred scavenger. Working with Redwood National Park and state parks, with funding from, among others, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs, they hope to create a self-sustaining population in northern California and southern Oregon.
At a media event last week, Yurok tribal chairman Joseph L. James said, “For countless generations, the Yurok people have upheld a sacred responsibility to maintain balance in the natural world. Condor reintroduction is a real-life manifestation of our cultural commitment to restore and protect the planet for future generations.” James presented Yurok Wildlife Department director and culture bearer Tiana Williams-Claussen with a beaded award for her helming the condor project for the past 10 years.
Said Redwood National Park Superintendent Steven Mietz, “We are listening to the original people and following their lead in how we manage the park to restore this very damaged landscape. As we heal this landscape and bring back the condors, and we start to restore the previous majestic glory of the redwood forest, we are also healing the relationship with each other and we are healing our relationship with the original Indigenous people.”
It’s estimated by energy consultants Wood Mackenzie that by 2030, solar energy will supply 50% of sub-Saharan Africa’s electricity needs. Some of that will be supplied by giant, utility-scale solar farms, but most will be generated by off-grid standalone systems. That’s the case in part because the cost of solar panels fell 82% from 2010 to 2020, 97% since 2000.
That’s good news for all kinds of reasons, including the fact that switching from kerosene lamps, candles, and wood-burning fires to solar electricity could save the lives of hundreds of thousands of the 1 million sub-Saharan Africans estimated to die from smoke-related ailments each year. Not to mention reducing greenhouse gas emissions, including methane and black carbon with their severe climate impacts. According to GOGLA, the Netherlands-based off-grid solar industry association, substituting a single solar light for candles or a kerosene lamp averts 1,200 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year.
Officials check out a residence with a newly installed solar system under the Cana Challenge. The challenge was launched in December 2021 to spur companies, individuals, and government organs to voluntarily make contributions to light up a Rwandan family that is off the grid and cannot afford electricity.
Wood Mackenzie estimates that 370 million residential households in the region now use solar, and 250,000 customers have solar-based mini-grids. That’s out of a total population of 1.3 billion. It’s one thing to switch in a developed country from utility-supplied electricity generated from fossil fuels to rooftop solar panels. It’s life-changing to switch from burning kerosene or wood to using solar electricity.
Yariv Cohen reports that 70-year-old Nakabonye, from the Rwanda village of Rusura, points to her granddaughter and says, “She can now do her homework after dark. Her grades have been constantly on the rise.”
Smallholder farmers represent a large share of the people purchasing solar home systems in the rural parts of the country, and the light is helping them with their work at home. “We used to bring Casava to clean inside the home and had to finish before nightfall,” says Maria, 53, from Kabunjwiri, “now we can continue after dark.” The added time to sort out crops leads to more products for sale, higher income, higher food security, and more business opportunities. 80% of those surveyed said their income increased. According to McKinsey, more than 60% of SSA’s working population are smallholder farmers, and the added working hours can lead to a better future for millions, both directly and indirectly. […]
“My kids are getting better grades now because they have more hours of light to study .”Says Claude, 36, from Ngando. “Their motivation is higher, making them happier to go to school.”
In the 1980s, scientists concluded that man-made chemicals, particularly chlorofluorocarbons, had created an ever-expanding hole in the stratospheric ozone layer that shields the environment, including humans, from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation. Initially, major companies that manufactured more than 100 of these ozone-depleting substances (ODS) denied the chemistry involved and even that the hole existed. They labeled as “alarmists” the scientists and others sounding the warning. But over a few years, as the scientific conclusion was reinforced with additional evidence, activists hit the streets and the situation became too obvious for politicians to evade, even though some certainly tried.
Consequently, 35 years ago, in September 1987, the Montreal Protocol to phase out ODS was agreed to and ratified two years later. Eventually, 197 countries signed it.
Comparison of the “Projected” (Left Sphere) and the “World Avoided” (Right Sphere) if chlorofluorocarbons and other ozone-depleting chemicals were not banned through the Montreal Protocol.
It’s working. According to a 2018 study by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), if the phaseout had not been implemented, the ozone hole would be about 2.5 million square miles larger than it is now. Instead, it has been shrinking by about 1%-3% per decade since the year 2000. And though the hole is still enormous and fluctuates in size from year to year, scientists expect it to be fully repaired in the northern hemisphere by the 2030s and in the southern hemisphere by the 2060s.
The U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) estimates that 443 million Americans won’t get skin cancer by 2100 because of the Montreal Protocol. In fact, NCAR reported, the agreement prevented more than 99% of the potential health harms that would have occurred from ozone depletion without it.
For 33 years, the Goldman Environmental Prize (GEP) has been awarded to a wide array of “ordinary people who take extraordinary actions to protect our planet.” One thing that quickly became obvious soon after the prizes were begun in 1989 is how many of those ordinary people are women. Shocker, eh? The GEP website notes:
Many of the people consistently speaking out against environmental dangers—and suggesting solutions—are women. Conventional wisdom suggests that women get involved in environmental movements because of an innate connection to the earth. Though this is often true, and many cultures value spiritual relationships with the natural world, there is more to the story. The overarching reason for women’s involvement in environmental issues is often more practical and immediate. […]
For International Women’s Day March 1 this year, the site spotlighted a few of the multitude of women who have focused on environmental impacts throughout history:
Dr. Rebecca Cole, a Black physician born in Philadelphia in 1848, was one of the first people to connect poor health with environmental problems. When she noticed that Black communities were suffering from diseases at higher rates because of their poor living conditions, she advocated for “Cubic Air Space Laws” to prevent overcrowding in impoverished neighborhoods.
Hoticulturalist Kate Sessions, the “Mother of Balboa Park,” wanted to create more green space in Southern California, so in 1892 she asked the city of San Diego to let her lease 30 acres of barren land in exchange for planting 100 trees a year.
Naturalist Margaret Thomas Muriestarted a conservation campaign in 1956 that eventually resulted in the establishment of the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, which remains the largest wildlife refuge in the United States. Goldman Prize winner Sarah James (United States, 2002) has continued to protect the refuge from oil drilling and other threats.
Inaugural Goldman Prize winner Lois Gibbs (United States, 1990) mobilized her community to protest the chemical waste contaminating her community in Niagara Falls, New York. Her work resulted in the creation of the EPA’s Superfund program and inspired countless people to embrace grassroots environmental activism.
Ecologist Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring in 1962, a book that exposed the dangers of chemical pesticides to wildlife and the environment. Her work helped shape public opinion and launch the start of the US environmental revolution in the 1960s.
Professor Wangari Maathai (GEP—Kenya, 1991) started Kenya’s Green Belt Movement in 1977 to fight against deforestation and desertification. Her lifelong environmental and human rights advocacy has inspired people worldwide to launch similar tree-planting and poverty-reduction initiatives. […]
Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, who first gained attention by conducting climate strikes at school, has become a household name by urging people across the globe to educate themselves about the dangers of climate change and take action to stop it.
Nemonte Nenquimo (GEP-Ecuador, 2020) galvanized her Indigenous community in Ecuador and launched a global campaign to protect half a million acres of Amazon rainforest from oil drilling. Her efforts have inspired other Indigenous communities to take legal action to preserve their land and wildlife.
Humpback whales nearly went extinct in the mid-20th Century, declining from an estimated 27,000 animals in 1830 to just 450 in the mid-1950s. But, as a result of the commercial whaling ban of 1986, biologists believe that the population will be “nearly recovered by 2030.” Some populations of the migratory humpbacks are still endangered or threatened while others are stable. Those that travel to Hawaii, for example, aren’t threatened or endangered, while those that travel to Mexico are threatened, and those that travel to Central America are endangered.
A humpback whale breaches in the Haro Strait of the Salish Sea.
Twenty-five years ago, zero humpbacks showed up in the Salish Sea north of Seattle. This year, reflecting a remarkable rebound, about 500 the whales appeared, and a record number of calves—21—showed up with them, according to a tally of scientists and whale watchers with the Pacific Whale Watch Association (PWWA). Just 11 calves were documented the previous year.
Said Wendi Robinson, a naturalist with Puget Sound Express, “2021 has been a banner year for female humpbacks coming into the Salish Sea with new calves. Calves only travel with mom for a year or so and then they’re on their own. Once they’re familiar with our waters, they will often return year after year to feed.”
PWWA Executive Director Erin Gless said, “We’re not sure why there were so many calves this year,” she says. “It’s possible the last two years had an abundance of food for the whales, or it could be as simple as the fact that as the number of adult whales in the population grows, so too does the number of calves we can expect to see each year,” adding that the whales are making up for lost time. “We are seeing lots and lots of whales, which is super exciting.”
