For people like Janet Reichl, the Durango woman who for the past 20 years has spent an average of three days per week picking up trash, Earth Day is every day.
For the rest of us, it is celebrated one day per year on April 22.
In a world with a population approaching 7.5 billion people, growing at over 24.5 million per year – all of whom rely on the earth’s ecosystems for clean air to breathe, water to drink and fertile land for food – that is not enough. We can all do more, and we should.
As the Trump administration is turning its back on important environmental and public health protections like the clean air and water acts, the agencies and people that oversee them and the communities that depend upon them, local action is gaining in importance.
The first Earth Day in 1970 launched the modern environmental movement; citizens advocated for action, and laws followed. One of them, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, better known as Superfund, was signed into law in 1980.
The Gold King Mine spill in 2015 was a glaring symptom of an unchecked and unmitigated industrial hazard that laws like Superfund were designed to address. Population growth and a changing climate, and a renewed focus on fossil fuel development, reinforce their necessity.
The administration’s move to reduce the Environmental Protection Agency’s $8.1 billion budget by 31 percent, its 15,000-member staff by 25 percent and key programs like Superfund by 45 percent should cause concern for both Democrats and Republicans. Environmental protection was not always a partisan issue and it does not have to be.
Every day we should all “think globally and act locally.” Buy and carry a reusable bag, mug and water bottle. Recycle and compost. Switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs and turn off the lights when not needed. Ride a bike. Install low-flow showerheads and toilets. Insulate your home and water heater and mount programmable thermostats.
Then, write a letter to a member of Congress.
We should do these things more than one day per year, but Earth Day is a good day to start.
