Earth Day 2023 : Invest in our planet

Every year on April 22, marks Earth Day. Earth Day didn’t come out of nowhere. The seeds for action were incubated in the fertile ground of anti-war, civil rights, and women’s rights protests of the 1960s. In 1962, Rachel Carson’s bestseller Silent Spring pulled the curtain back on the dangerous effects of pesticides and helped spur public awareness about the links between environmental degradation and public health.

Seven years later in 1969, an oil slick on Cleveland’s polluted Cuyahoga River caught fire, National media coverage by Time magazine and National Geographic helped shine a light on the injustices of chemical waste disposal.By 1970, the American public was just waking up to the disastrous implications of environmental degradation. The first Earth Day was envisioned by one of its founders, the former Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, as a way to “shake up the political establishment,” and broaden national attention to environmental issues through teach-ins, demonstrations, and other advocacy.

Rallies were organised and on  22 April 1970, 20 million people took to the streets across the United States to protest environmental destruction.and by the end of the year, the US federal government established the Environmental Protection Agency and over time, this movement gained momentum and now has over one billion people observing this day with great enthusiasm every year, with participation from approximately 192 countries.

The  basic call for action back in 1970 was the same as it is for us today: that we must limit pollution, along with greed, and listen to scientists if we want an Earth that continues to be habitable.

From tiny microorganisms to humans and giant whales, all forms of life reside on the beautiful planet Earth. This planet provides them with all the essentials required for a healthy and happy life, such as shelter, food, air, and other necessities.

Earth is often referred to as "Mother Earth" because of its nurturing qualities. However, unfortunately, due to our selfish desires, we have started to harm the planet. It is crucial to provide proper attention and care to Earth's failing health.

Every year, Earth Day is commemorated with a different theme that highlights the various challenges facing our planet. According to https://www.earthday.org/  the official global organiser of the event, the theme for Earth Day 2023 is "Invest in Our Planet". a call to action for governments, organisations, and individuals to collaborate and invest in protecting our planet to ensure a healthy and sustainable future for all. This day is an opportunity for governments, organisations, and individuals to reflect and renew their commitment to investing in the health and wellbeing of our planet by protecting and healing our environment.

Investing in our planet is crucial for the survival and prosperity of future generations, and it requires a collective effort to preserve our natural resources. We need to make conscious decisions, take action towards sustainable living, minimise environmental degradation, invest in clean energy solutions, and promote efficient use of resources.

The Covid-19 pandemic made the interconnectedness of our world and the impact that our actions have on it more apparent than ever before. However, it also showed us that we can make significant positive changes by working together towards a common goal.

One of the biggest challenges the Earth is facing is climate change. The effects of climate change are increasingly becoming apparent, with rising temperatures, droughts, floods, and the loss of biodiversity. Climate change is a devastating force, leading to a hungrier and more vulnerable world. It destabilises economies, fuels conflict, cripples productivity and weakens social structures. It’s the most vulnerable people in the world who are disproportionately exposed to extreme weather events, more reliant on natural resources, and least able to cope with and adapt to environmental impacts.  Between 1998 and 2017 of all natural disasters, 90% were climate related. When farmers suffer from drought, communities face devastating floods year after year, or when businesses don’t have sustainable electricity, more complex crises can arise.  Climate change deeply impacts every emerging economy, sector, supply chain, and industry. There are 3.3 billion people whose lives are at risk and highly vulnerable due to climate change and over 130 million people will be pushed into poverty by climate change by 2030.

Urgent action is needed to transition to a more sustainable way of living and reduce our carbon footprint.

There are many ways to invest in our planet, and we can all make a difference. For instance, we all can do many things to help mitigate the effects of climate change.

Our collective action will preserve and restore natural resources, biodiversity, and ecosystem services and consequently heal our Earth. Simple changes in our daily habits like reducing our use of single-use plastics, using public transport or cycling instead of driving, and eating more plant-based diets can all have a significant impact. We can invest in sustainable agriculture practices and support initiatives that restore degraded land and ecosystems. We can also support organisations and initiatives working towards environmental sustainability and conservation by advocating for policies that promote the use of renewable energy, participating in events, signing petitions, and joining organisations that work towards protecting the Earth.

Businesses also have a role to play. Many companies have already taken steps towards becoming more environmentally sustainable by investing in renewable energy, reducing waste, and adopting sustainable practices throughout their operations, but there is still much more that can be done. Businesses should continue investing in technologies that reduce their carbon footprint, work towards a circular economy, and help drive the transition to a more sustainable future.

Governments also have a responsibility to tackle climate change and environmental degradation. Through infrastructure, policies, and legislation, governments can incentivise sustainable practices, attract investments in renewable energy, and protect natural habitats and wildlife. Also, governments can invest in supporting education and awareness campaigns that help to raise public consciousness about environmental issues. 

One other thing you can do to honor the Earth this Earth Day is to educate yourself about the connection between climate change and capitalism.

Our capitalist economic system is fundamentally incompatible with a healthy planetary ecosystem, says Naomi Kline in This Changes Everything.  We live on a planet with finite resources, but our economic system is premised on infinite growth.  Capitalism demands unfettered growth of consumption, but our survival and that of many other species requires a contraction of humanity’s growth and consumption. Our choice, says Kline, is to fundamentally change our economic system, or to allow nature to change it for us. The first will be hard, but the second even harder. So we must change our economic system.

This means challenging some of our most cherished myths: the myth that capitalism and democracy are equivalent, the myth that capitalist societies are the most happy, the myth that capitalism was proven to be the “one true economic system” with the fall of the Soviet Union, the myth that consumers have all the power in a capitalist system, and that most pernicious myth of all, the myth that there are no alternatives.

We can unlearn capitalist ways of thinking.  Capitalism infects all of our relationships: with other people, with other-than-human beings, and with the Earth.  Consider the way we “value” other people and how we sometimes calculate whether what we get from them is more than what we give in return. Think about your relationship to the place you live.  Is it a place you “use”, or is it a world you inhabit, cherish, and care for?  We learned these ways of thinking, and we can unlearn them.

In no uncertain terms, it is impossible to sustainably interact with nature while adhering to a strict capitalist structure. Capitalism must maintain the maximal abuse of natural resources to increasingly produce in order to raise profit.

Almost half of the food produced globally is wasted. This is impossible to rationalize given that currently, aside from the recent pandemic, 20,000 people die of hunger daily.

However, from a capitalist economic outlook, this makes perfect sense because the goal is profit maximisation. The equilibrium for profit maximisation is such that production at this scale of wastage provides the highest net profit. Based on capitalism’s greedy increase in profit, all other assumptions must be made in line with, and only with, an outcome of profit maximisation.

We are witness to the global deterioration and irreversible destruction caused by capitalism. Global warming, pandemics, epidemics, habitat loss, pollution, disease, economic inequality, extremism, crime, deforestation, and social instability are just some of the global problems that are directly linked to capitalist greed.

We spend billions in healthcare to reverse damages such as obesity because corporations produce harmful food. They do not intend to poison us deliberately; but they do, in fact, because they choose to adhere to a capitalist system that commands profit maximisation at any cost.

There is no inherent social morality or ethics within capitalism other than enforceable legal parameters. Sustainable living within a strictly capitalist system is paradoxical. We have confirmed through decades that greed overcomes compassion and capitalism trumps harmony.

For the wealthiest few this is acceptable due to opportunities that extreme wealth affords. But today, the discussion is no longer one of classism but of survival.

When we eventually deplete all natural resources, as we are quickly doing, we all perish together. Whether we face storms or starve, in the long run there will remain nothing for even the wealthiest few.

Unless the prevalent capitalist system is tackled and reformed on a global scale,the world’s environmental problems – climate change, pollution and food security among them – will lead to a mass extinction event.

Earth Day reminds us all of our urgent need  to take action for our planet  and to commit to restoring her health and wellbeing. By working together, we can protect mother earth for future generations as we move towards a more sustainable future. Let us make Earth Day 2023 a turning point in our collective efforts towards safeguarding the environment. For a truly equitable future, feel-good investment is simply not enough. Moving forward, Earth Day must be restored to its radical roots, bringing millions of people together around the globe to voice a common call for systemic, anti capitalist  change.