Survival day. that’s the name that will get noticed.

What does being an environmentalist mean? Define that before you say whether you are one or not. Is it like pornography, (instead of erotica) you know it when you see it?

If a bear tries to eat me and I want my friend to shoot it before it does before nature continues in that path, does that mean I am not an environmentalist?

Frankly, I could care less about ANWR in Alaska. If the whole thing just fell into the sea, as long as no people went with it, fine.

But for a world where large forests are changed to desserts, where farmland is now sand, that’s bad for Humans and the environment. that shouldn’t happen.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/ environment/ 2009/ apr/ 21/ prince-charles-harmony-book

“I believe that true ’sustainability’ depends fundamentally upon us shifting our perception and widening our focus, so that we understand, again, that we have a sacred duty of stewardship of the natural order of things,” said the prince in a statement yesterday. “In some of our actions we now behave as if we were ‘masters of nature’ and, in others, as mere bystanders. If we could rediscover that sense of harmony; that sense of being a part of, rather than apart from nature, we would perhaps be less likely to see the world as some sort of gigantic production system, capable of ever-increasing outputs for our benefit – at no cost.”

The prince is working on the book with co-authors Ian Skelly and ex-Friends of the Earth director Tony Juniper. Juniper said he was delighted to be helping the prince on such an important project: “I hope his ideas will take the debate – about balancing the needs of the economy with those of ecology – on to a new stage. The prince believes the real crisis is one of perception, of how important ecology is.”

But I do like Chu’s formulation: every day should be Earth Day. Not just one out of 365.

You would think that with all the things about going green and climate change, melting glaciers etc, you would think that Joe Blogs would be jumping on board, bringing re-usable bags to the shops etc, but the fact of the matter is, we still have a long way to go.

Most people feel like they are doing their bit by recycling bottles and switching off some lights, and maybe picking up some litter? There’s so much more education that has to happen and even though the term “Earth Day” might seem trite, it’s still the most surefire way to bring attention to the cause.

Ask anyone what “World Water” day is or what’s “Earth Hour” or even “Arbor Day” and you’ll get a blank look. Earth Day they still understand.

The Hair Shirt school of environmentalism is a dead end because it ignores the real problem: climate change is a major existential dilemma that ensnares environmentalists and hummer drivers equally. We live in a culture that privileges the Powerful Individual, and climate change is a problem that individuals have no power to fix.

I can deny myself showers and electricity and driving all day long, and for that matter every single person reading this blog could do exactly the same kind of penance, and it would do more harm than good for two reasons. One, it wouldn’t be enough to make a difference. And two, that gesture proves to the unconverted that extreme, denying behavioral changes are necessary to prevent climate change. Who wants to sign on to that party?

People who really want to save the human race

(it’s true that it’s not about saving the planet)

need to stop relying on the truth of what they are saying and start thinking in terms of persuading people. Earth Day is technically meaningless, but it’s a powerful persuasion tool. It’s got the potential to become a gateway drug if it is managed as such. What if leaders like Joe Romm stopped using Earth Day as an opportunity to scare people and instead followed up on people’s commitment to the environment *after* earth day? Used the fun of Earth Day to get people to sign up for emails about legislation, complete with an Email Your Congressperson button? Or got people to pledge a month of meatless Fridays? Bike to work or carpool one day a week? Or a million other fun, innocuous baby steps that are grounded in substantive, concrete changes to their lives today (that happened to also be good ways to reduce CO2 emissions)?

Hammering and frightening people doesn’t work very well. It hasn’t worked very well so far. Why not stop, and try to actively engage people instead?

Time is a-wasting, and we simply cannot do this by ourselves!

“Joe isn’t saying we shouldn’t save as much of the Gaia as possible, ”

That statement indicates a lack of understanding of the Gaia hypothesis. Lovelock postulated that self-regulation is an emergent property of life interacting with earth.

By corollary, species which evolve into a form where they fail to contribute to planetary self-regulation are likely to temporarily destroy the balance and cause their own extinction.

“Keeping as much of Gaia as possible” doesn’t mean anything. Gaia will always exist – it may just decide to shrug us off, roll back a few 100 million years and start again.

That’s why Earth Day needs renaming – because though we may (have) wrecked the planet for all the other species, we are the only things that give a damn (not enough of one, but still…) about that. We are worth saving, humanity deserves to survive, and to thrive (and to do that we need to save the other species, so, y’know, win-win and all that…), but if we don’t, Gaia will do just fine…and won’t notice that we’re gone…and that would be a shame indeed.