Why Earth Day still matters

Is Earth Day still relevant? Coming up on its 48th anniversary, the day dedicated to celebrate the planet may not seem so relevant as it once was. We're all recycling, right? Here are 10 reasons Earth Day is as important as ever. 

These reasons are all related, so working on even one or two of them can help a broader area of concerns. You may be surprised, that recycling is itself a method of last resort to protect the environment. Finding ways to reduce the waste stream beforehand are better yet. 

1. The world's children

Every year more children are born, more begin school, more graduate high school, then college and move into the work force. Every year, there are children who are eager to learn about the world they live in, and young adults who are still eager in making a difference in the quality of life they and their children will experience. If we don't reach out to them, they will hear more about the benefits of exploiting the environment than of preserving it. 

2. Over-dependence on cars

Electric cars powered by solar energy will help clean up the environment, but these efforts only go so far in terms of reducing the problem caused by the sheer number of cars we are driving all the time. We need to drive less, and use alternative ways of getting around, i.e., walking, cycling, public transit, even using the Internet. 

America still spends about $8 of every $10 in transportation funding on roadways built principally for cars rather than on all forms of public transit. Flipping that relationship could help the environment immensely. It could also help each of us move to healthier living and reduce the stress in our lives caused by the uncertainties of traffic jams and snarls. Every day, we lose a large part of American worker productivity in traffic jams — and that is a direct negative impact of how we have structured our urban environments. 

3. Eating a better diet 

Turns out that a diet that is good for our own health also turns out to be good for the planet. It's not a matter of making huge changes where everyone becomes vegetarian over night. But, if we reduce the amount of animal products we consume even a small amount, we can do a lot to help the environment. 

Putting a fast-food burger in front of you for lunch can use more water than fifty 8-minute showers. And, inasmuch as most of the food we grow is bathed in chemical poisons and fertilizers, by cutting some of the middlemen out of the picture (the animals that eat the plants we grow to feed them), we can help protect the environment. 

4. A fight against poverty and for equality

As long as there are large swaths of America where poverty is commonplace, national environmental goals will remain elusive. The worst impact is of course on those Americans who must endure the poverty tied to issues like contaminated water, lead paint on housing, higher concentrations of toxic diesel pollution, lead and chromium in the air. 

This comes from battery recycling plants (like Exide in South Los Angeles), metal plating facilities, and along shipping corridors (think big trucks, trains and cargo-carrying ships). The places with the worst environmental records are typically the ones with the most poverty and highest concentrations of people of color. We've further seen that economic hard times encourage a kind of tribalism that tears down nations and infrastructure, rather than helping advance humanity. 

5. Protecting the desert

The Trump administration wants to open up protected areas of the California desert to a mix of uses, including mining and energy farms. And though renewable energy is an environmental darling, it is better to get our energy from urban sources (like rooftop solar) than to take new land for that purpose. Nestlé still intends to pull millions of gallons of water out of desert aquifers to sell bottle water.

6. Protecting the coast

We won the battle to protect the California coast, didn't we? Well, so it would seem. But that battle has to be won every time someone proposes drilling on the coast for oil. And this is exactly what the Trump administration is planning to do, along most of the West Coast – protecting only the coast along Florida, a state that voted for Trump in the last election. 

The battle to protect the cost in California's container ship ports is still ongoing. In places like San Pedro Bay, more than 3,000 acres of healthy wetlands have been taken for receiving goods from China. There, the residents of Wilmington are one of the few places along the California coast where there is no natural coastal access. There, residents can't dip their toes in the ocean without driving to an adjoining community. Not surprisingly, Wilmington is 90% people of color. 

7. Reversing climate change

Not only does President Trump not care about climate change, he seems intent on instituting policies that will aggravate it. The administration's lackadaisical approach to climate change will open up more coal power plants, even as the industry itself can barely compete with other forms of energy. 

8. Reinvigorating conservation

Ever since Ronald Reagan took down the solar panels that Jimmy Carter put on the White House, America has been in an era where we look to technology to permit ever-increasing and wanton consumption. 

And though consuming kilowatts that come from solar panels and wind farms is better than from coal or nuclear power plants, conserving power through more efficient use is better yet. Think of it this way: Every piece of everything, paper, plastic, glass, metal, we throw in a landfill represents a huge amount of energy that we used to make those things that are now waste. 

If we made our goods last longer in the first place and easier to repair or recycle, we could save on landfill cost and energy. Building solar panels and wind farms takes energy, and making that energy itself will contribute to climate change. This is among the reasons that reducing our waste stream and the need to recycle in the first place is the way to go. 

9. Food waste and hunger

Around the developed world, some 40% to 50% of the food produced is discarded uneaten. Ironically, since we put refrigerators in almost every home (in the 1930s), the percentage of food we throwout has at least doubled. We may never get food waste down to zero, but we should be able to do a lot better than we are now. Indeed, we grow enough food to prevent starvation worldwide, and still, more than 9 million die each year from starvation. 

10. Fighting war

War is perhaps the most environmentally destructive activity humans do. Yet, environmental crises help precipitate wars. The drought that preceded Syria's ongoing civil war may have been the worst in the past 900 years and is considered a contributor to the conflict. 

War itself uses a tremendous amount of energy and resources, and contaminates a lot of land. The scars rendered by war, drought and extreme poverty can induce yet more conflict, making an ugly feedback loop where wars and environmental destruction contribute to each other. 

Tom Politeo is a Sierra Club member and the designer of the Angeles Chapter newsletter SoCal Now.