The first Earth Day was 41 years ago.It is clear that the idea
of celebrating an Earth Day no longer carries the excitement that
was aroused in 1970.
The first Earth Day was 41 years ago.
It is clear that the idea of celebrating an Earth Day no longer carries the excitement that was aroused in 1970. Rather, those we care about the environment seem to be forever fighting the same battles that were fought in the the last decades of the 20th century. Only this time, they fight a defensive battle, trying to protect the gains made in the 1980s and early 1990s. Even the one segment of our government whose sole mission is to protect the environment on behalf of all is under attack, threatened to be defunded or eliminated.
Something happened during those years. I have been spending a lot of time recently trying to figure out just what changed and I am still not sure that I understand it.
America has always had writers who connected with the world around them. Thoreau made a life at Walden Pond and reminded us that “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.” This, then, is perhaps the literary beginning of an Earth consciousness in America.
Californians surely are ever mindful of the legacy of John Muir whose love of nature, the beauty of Yosemite, inspired many and who helped found the Sierra Club. But looking for other sources, I was led to Aldo Leopold, a professor of forestry from Wisconsin. I was lucky to find his “A Sand County Almanac” at the Morgan Hill library. More than any other book, even Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” Leopold’s work has shaped the modern ecological movement.
Leopold developed a land ethic from a few simple notions. The first is the observation that land is a community of living things. Anyone who works in a garden has the opportunity to re-learn this basic fact every day. The aphids come early, but disappear as soon as enough soldier beetles or lady bugs are around. This is the very foundation of ecology, the awareness of the interconnection of all life systems.
Leopold went beyond just being aware of what was happening around him. He came to the conclusion that land was to be respected, even loved. On his Sand County farm, he spent years restoring the land to what it had once been, removing some invasive plants and re-planting acres of white pine. This was his take on conservation, restoring what had once naturally been there, ever aware of how the communities of Sand County interacted with each other, the pine with the dewberry.
Today is Earth Day 2011 and we are no longer in Leopold’s world. Morgan Hill makes this day an event, perhaps doing more than most cities to remind us of just what is all around us, every day, if we take the time to open our eyes. But is this not a sign that our urban society does not provide room enough or time enough to practice the particular kind of awareness that was a natural as breathing for Leopold, and so we have to make it an event.
We are lucky to have Ron Erskine writing in the Times. He brings an awareness of what we don’t see, or feel, because he takes the time to go places for us. I wonder, though, whether seeing the wider world through Ron’s eyes helps put more distance between ourselves and the communities all around us.
It was only when my wife and I started to turn our lot into a mini-orchard that I began to observe what had always been there. I discovered that spiders are a gardener’s good friend and developed a feel for just how many varieties of spiders we have on one lot. Things seem to get out of hand only when we start changing too many things.
I can deal with the communities on my own land, but in today’s world there are too many ways in which the external begins to affect what happens on my piece of land. Not everyone has the same idea of land as community. The air we breathe, the water that we drink, or use in our garden, comes from other sources and control of that is always political. The land use policies that we have put in place may not have any sense of a land ethic or of the wider community that we live in.
The current congressional attacks on the Environmental Protection Administration are only the most visible manifestation of a greedy, 19th century Robber Baron mentality that would rob us all of our future. The EPA was established during the time of awakened awareness following the first Earth Day.
This fight will not be easily won. It was what drove me to change political parties, registering as a Green. Greens may not yet have the power to do the right things, but at least we do not sell our future for a corporate donation.
Wes Rolley is a Morgan Hill artist and concerned citizen. He is co-chairman of the EcoAction Committee, Green Party.
