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Earth Day? So what?

Green activists say we still need it after 40 years

Philly's Official Earth Week Logo  from 1970
Philly's Official Earth Week Logo from 1970Read more

OMG, YOU HEARD about that "Climategate" thing, right? Yeah, turns out the whole global warming thing is a big hoax - the scientists in charge were totally making the whole thing up and stopping anybody else from getting the word out! "Going green" turns out to be based on a big scam!

As overblown as this locution is, it's what many people are hearing and reading on the Internet.

Let's suppose, for a moment, that this denialist fantasy is true: Climate change is all a bunch of hokum. There's no imminent planetary disaster we need to worry about stopping.

So what about Earth Day, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this week. If there is no global warming, is Earth Day still relevant?

A look back to 1970 provides some perspective. That first Earth Day had nothing to do with climate change: It was about the simple premise that we needed to change our attitude toward the land we live on, the water we drink and the air we breathe - that we needed to show respect for the stuff that we depend on.

So global warming aside, we could probably still learn a couple of things from the "old school" version of Earth Day.

Edward Furia, project director for Philly's original event, agreed.

"There are issues that were front and center in 1970 that are still very much out there: Water quality is one of them - people are still dying in large numbers from diseases they get from bad water." And even after the passage of the Clean Water Act, there's still water pollution right here in the United States.

Furia, now the CEO of AFS Trinity Power Corp., also pointed out that for all the hype about fossil fuels and carbon, the need to "wean ourselves off of foreign oil" is a simple, pragmatic and urgent goal, regardless of what happens in the upper atmosphere. "There is simply not sufficient oil to serve the needs of China, India and the United States," he said. "We are headed for a collision with China over competition for resources."

So if these big problems are still lingering, what should we be doing? Eco-activist and "Philadelphia Orchard Project" founder Paul Glover said that "Philly welcomes dozens of new initiatives every month that lower cost of living and eating while cleaning the water and the air."

He should know. Glover's "Green Jobs Philly" newsletter has galvanized the local green scene, connecting skilled people with positions and serving as a bulletin board for all kinds of sustainability info. He stressed that there are plenty of untapped opportunities, many that are more meaningful and useful than sorting your recyclables or changing your lightbulbs.

"I'd like to see a Philly insulation factory," he said. "Empty warehouses, newspapers, fire retardant: Put them together and you're creating insulation that skilled people can install. Doing that is a 'green' contribution in itself, but doing it with insulation offers even more impact."

And, Glover said, "we can manufacture locally many things we now import from far away - that's a very sustainable move."

Glover also cites the relatively low-cost "cool roof" - painting your rooftop white to keep your energy costs down throughout the summer - and "green roofs," planting a garden or other foliage up there to absorb the sunlight and turn it into something useful. And as befits a man who generates urban orchards, Glover urged, "Plant more trees!" Besides trees' aesthetic quality in the city, "they correlate to a reduction of crime, and they offer shade to cool people off."

Overall, Glover said, we can "get busy rebuilding American cities to a balance of nature, creating millions of jobs in the process. This is a mission more urgent, immediate and fun than fighting wars and going to the moon."

Glover has accomplished much on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis, while Furia has worked more in conjunction with government initiatives, but both stressed that it's crucial to join forces with each other rather than trying to achieve the greenest individual lifestyle.

"These problems are so big," Furia said, "they have to be confronted on an institutional basis." He suggests that the biggest individual contribution we can make is to cast an informed vote, but he also pointed me to a chart showing how much water is consumed by various daiy activities.

"The environmental crisis has many headlines," noted Glover, "but the green movement is far bigger" than just climate change.

Which takes us back to global warming. Despite the early headlines, the "Climategate" scientists have now been cleared of wrongdoing by their respective investigations, the consensus among the world's scientific body holds steady and the temperature keeps climbing - globally, March 2010 was the hottest March on record.

So whether or not you participate in any special events (see box) to mark Earth Day's 40th anniversary, it's still an opportunity to renew the commitment and promise of the 1970 event.

As Glover said, "our children deserve cities as beautiful as they are."