Earth Day Every Day
“Preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.” - Carl Sagan
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I went camping only once in my life: I was an eight year old Girl Scout (Brownie level) who felt acutely the good-natured peer pressure to spend the night in the woods with my troop members. And so, against my better judgment, I went along.
Here’s what I remember: the tent that left me exposed and vulnerable to the elements, the public concrete campground toilet that stunk to high heaven, the spiders and raccoons. It.Was.Terrible.
I was merely a child, but I made a solemn vow as soon as I got home to my safe, warm bed. Even though I hadn’t yet seen Gone with the Wind at that young age, I channeled my inner Scarlett O’Hara and declared, “As God as my witness, I will never go camping again!” And to this day, over forty years later, I have kept my promise.
It’s not that I hated being outdoors exactly. As a child, hazy summers meant being outside from early morning until evening, playing, skating, and riding bikes. Later there was marching band practice in dew-covered grass. I didn’t actively avoid spending time in nature, but the older I became, the more my outside experiences became limited to the pool and the beach.
The woods, however, were another matter entirely. The woods held no appeal whatsoever until a couple of years ago when David suggested a hike.
A hike? Me? Please. I don’t have the right shoes!
But I did it. We started slowly, and I soon discovered that I really enjoyed it! My head felt clear, and for a short time, I allowed myself to forget all about work and bills and car troubles. It had been a long time since I had experienced that degree of mental acuity and I realized the component I had been missing as I tried to achieve balance in my life: nature.
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Since 1970, Earth Day has served as a reminder of the precious and singular role nature plays in sustaining human life. Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin proposed an act to protect the environment. April 22nd marks the day that we are supposed to pay tribute to Mother Earth and reconfirm our commitment to preserving her at all costs.
A few years ago, I stepped outside my comfort zone and chose to read a book about trees. I’ve read many fictional works on a wide variety of topics, but trees? Never. However, this novel affected me on a deep level and changed my mindset about our natural world. Richard Powers’ novel The Overstory is a “quiet” story featuring interconnected stories of characters who are deeply and profoundly connected to trees, some knowingly and actively, and some passively and nostalgically. The “overstory” occurs above the ground as the characters, who run the gamut from activist to artist to computer programmer, recognize the importance of the environment and connected ecosystems in their lives. The “overstory” represents more than just the human plot in the book; it also refers to the canopy created by the trees and their foliage.
Perhaps most importantly, what is slowly revealed throughout the book is the “understory” of a root system that unites all the trees on the planet, symbolizing the idea that the forests of the world are really one giant living, breathing organism, and by extension, we humans are part of it as well.
Powers’ work brings us face to face with our collective responsibility for our fragile planet, and his message is a timely one as we approach Earth Day 2023. It’s easy to give lip service to hollow promises of environmental betterment. What goes much further is declaring Earth Day every day and stepping out of our metal and glass lives and into the lush life-giving ecosystems that surround us.
So many young people embrace the restorative properties of nature, seeking out trails for hiking and waterways for paddling and rowing. But for many of us in older generations, appreciation for the outdoors sometimes comes with age, as we search for peace and tranquility in an increasingly loud and complex world. Our devotion to our planet deepens naturally and gradually as we consider what future generations will inherit from us.
Surprisingly some people view Earth Day through a purely economic lens, regarding it as an antithesis to capitalism and economic progress. Sometimes it’s hard to see past the dollar signs that drive our lives, but there are enough dystopian novels and films rooted in environmental devastation out there to scare us straight and force us to examine our role in the pollution of our fragile home and commit ourselves to a more sustainable future.
How appropriate for us this Earth Day weekend to “[p]reserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”
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(This article was originally published April 22, 2023 in the Southern Spice section of the Times-Georgian.)
