This sign next to the Hudson River is a chilling reminder that the effect of pollution remains long into the future. It is up to us to be the change we wish to see. |
Peacefully rowing down the Cuyahoga River in your boat, you
think all if fine until suddenly the river catches on fire. You go to the Hudson River to catch a fish,
but there is a sign that says fishing is banned because the fish are so
contaminated with toxins they cannot be safely eaten. You sit under a tree to listen
to the birds but you hear none. You look up and there are no birds to be
found. You find out that the culprit is
the pesticide DDT and it is also being detected in human breast milk resulting
in 15% of infant deaths. You decide to
visit Storm King Mountain, a park renowned for its natural beauty, only to find
that it is the proposed site for the largest power plant of its kind in the
world.
You move to a new village called Love Canal. A few years later, people start reporting an
alarming number of miscarriages, cancer cases and nervous disorders. Some 56%
of children are born with a birth defect.
Children playing in the rain puddles come back home with burns on their
hands and faces from the water. A few
years later you find out that your village had been built on top of 21,000 tons
of toxic waste. Suddenly the government
advises you to stop eating the fruits and vegetables you grow in your yard and
to stop drinking the water. In fact,
they advise you to move.
You then decide to relocate near the beautiful Susquehanna
River, only to be greeted by an eerie siren and to find out that 150,000 litres
of radioactive waste has just been released into the river from the local
Nuclear Power Station. The consequence:
a spike in infant and animal mortality, birth defects and thyroid cancer
discovered only years later.
All of these real events happened in the U.S. in the 1960s
and 1970s, along with many other similar events. On April 22, 1970, some 20 million people, over
12,000 high schools, 2,000 universities and thousands of community groups protested
and called for environmental reform. They
called it Earth Day- a grassroots movement of the people. As a result of this movement in the U.S., the
Environmental Protection Agency and 8 critical environmental laws were passed
to protect the people and the environment.
By 1990, the grassroots Earth Day movement included 200
million people in 141 countries. This facilitated
the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit where several international environmental
laws were passed. In 2009, the United
Nations passed a resolution to designate April 22 as International Mother Earth
Day. Now 43 years after the first Earth
Day was formed by a grassroots movement of concerned people, over a billion
people in 192 countries are raising environmental concerns on the same day
making it the largest civic observance in the world.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed
citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”- Margaret Mead
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