Earth Day Needs a Reboot
Credit: Paresh
Once a powerful event that put environmental issues on the global stage, Earth Day has become a festival of feel-good activities and lofty pledges with little to no actual impact. When people are planting flowers and buying Hydroflasks to “save the planet” while greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise and ecosystems are collapsing, something has to change. The stakes are higher than ever for environmental and climate action, but the activities and pronouncements associated with Earth Day have never been more frivolous.
It’s not the day itself that’s the problem. By most accounts, the first Earth Day in 1970 was a success. It’s often referred to as the main catalyst for some of the world’s most important environmental laws, including the Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts. Earth Day was born of activism whose message was, as Walter Cronkite put it in a 1970 CBS News report on the event, “Act or die.”
In 1970, the threat of death by environmental catastrophe was more immediate and more visible: smoggy air, polluted water (that sometimes caught fire), oil spills. People took to the streets because they were fed up with environmental destruction and the health threats that came with it. Today, that’s the exact attitude that Earth Day observers should adopt: we’re fed up, and institutions need to change–NOW.
Collective and institutional action over individual
Today, small thinking and a focus on individual actions have replaced the urgent need for institutional change that marked the first Earth Day. Making individuals feel like it’s up to us to fix the climate is a marketing strategy taken up by Big Oil in the early 2000s that’s still going strong. They weaponize our climate guilt to make us feel responsible and distract us from the truth they’ve known since 1977: fossil fuels are by far the leading cause of the climate crisis, and the only way to slow and ultimately reverse climate change is to stop burning them.
Other industries, companies, and climate delayers in government have taken up that same strategy to deflect blame and avoid taking any real action. Tragically, the news media and popular culture have integrated that deceptive but wildly successful messaging into discussions about Earth Day. All week, headlines, announcements, and social media posts have told us that Earth Day is about individuals taking action: “Here’s how you can do your part to help the planet,” “6 “Super easy ways to help the planet.”
That’s why Earth Day needs a reboot.
A New Earth Day: demanding accountability and action from institutions
A new and improved Earth Day would move beyond “do your part” and center on what we really need: focused public pressure on institutions that have the most power to curb climate change.
It’s a little late to make a new and better version of Earth Day this year, but you can choose to celebrate tomorrow (and every day after that!) by contributing to the big institutional changes that will turn the climate crisis around. Here are three potential actions to get you started:
1. Welcome renewable energy in your community.
We need LOTS more clean electricity generation to meaningfully curb emissions from power plants and reign in climate change. Every renewable energy construction project has to be planned and approved at the local level, and that local approval is a huge barrier to progress all over the U.S. From opposition groups that take money from Big Oil to misinformation on social media, there are many headwinds slowing down clean energy development at the local level, sometimes stopping it altogether. We need to fight back.
If there’s a renewable energy project under consideration in your town or county that is well-sited and well-planned, declare yourself a YIMBY (yes, in my backyard!) for renewables. Attend council and zoning board meetings; submit comments on relevant policies; write letters to your local government leaders. Be vocal about your support for the project, and talk about the many benefits of clean energy to anyone who’ll listen. It’s great to put solar panels on your roof, but from a climate impact perspective, helping bring clean energy to hundreds or thousands of your neighbors is even better. And you don’t have to do it alone. Local organizations in every state are doing this kind of work and can serve as a valuable resource for getting engaged.
2. Tell your government representatives that you are a climate voter.
Governments are arguably the institutions with the most power to make a dent in climate change. From “polluters pay” laws to creative incentives and programs that promote energy efficiency and reduce GHG emissions, governments can play the role of climate game-changer like no one else. In the U.S., governments at all levels must answer to voters. The more city councils, county boards, state legislatures, governor’s offices, congresspeople, senators, and presidents hear from their constituents that climate is their number one (or at least an important) issue, the more likely they are to support policies that drive climate progress.
Make phone calls to your state or federal representatives’ offices, submit a comment on a pending environmental or climate law, and attend a rally in support of a climate-focused political candidate. By showing politicians that their work on climate is a big reason why you support them (or showing them that they won’t get or have lost your support until they get right on climate issues), you’re making addressing the climate crisis an issue they can’t afford to ignore. And the more politicians and policymakers think that way, the more progress governments will make on climate.
3. Just talk about climate change!
The climate crisis is now affecting Americans and humans around the world every single day. But how often does it come up in your day-to-day conversations? For most people, it’s rarely or not at all. Keeping the climate crisis top of mind is critical, given all that we have to do to achieve climate progress.
Bringing up how recent events–extreme or unusual weather, for example–are related to climate change, getting excited about climate policies, and sharing your personal hopes and fears about the climate crisis are all effective ways of making a ripple in your social group that can become more powerful as it radiates outward. A recent analysis shows that social comparison is the best tool for encouraging climate-friendly behavior change.
Today, positive news about climate progress–we have all the technologies we need to reverse climate change, right now!--is particularly valuable in fighting hopelessness and apathy that can block progress. If it’s something you care about, let your climate freak flag fly! You might just educate and inspire a few friends, and a few of their friends, and a few of their friends, in the process.
So let’s keep celebrating Earth Day, but bring it back to its activist roots. When it comes to climate action, individuals have power, but that power extends far beyond planting wildflowers and changing light bulbs. We have to set our sights higher.