Editorial

Think global, and local, on Earth Day

Posted

On April 22, we will celebrate the 46th annual Earth Day, when, ideally, we should commit to improving the state of our great Mother Ship. Despite our best efforts to discover a second planet where we might lay down roots, we haven’t. At some point, folks, we must recognize that this is it. There is no other Earth, at least not one that we might inhabit.

Northrop Grumman’s recent lineup of TV commercials would have us believe that Mars is ripe for colonization. It isn’t. The notion that people will have populated the red planet in any large numbers by the year 2100 is the stuff of science fiction. Mars is a barren, desolate, toxic wasteland, devoid of life as we know it. Our only real hope is to preserve our blue planet, which still teems with life.

The ecosystems that support life on Earth, however, are incredibly fragile, easily disturbed and destroyed. We mustn’t take them for granted. We must actively work to save all that we can –– while there is still time to act. That requires each of us to do our part. If we don’t, there’s no telling what will eventually become of our species without an inhabitable planet.

In 1970, America led the way in founding the now international Earth Day movement. Sen. Gaylord Nelson, a Wisconsin Democrat, came up with the idea after witnessing the environmental devastation caused by an infamous 100,000-barrel oil spill in Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1969, according to the nonprofit Earth Day Network. On the first Earth Day — April 22, 1970 — some 20 million Americans took to the streets and parks to protest widespread industrial damage to the environment. That mass protest led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and inspired states to form their own such agencies. In New York we have the Department of Environmental Conservation.

In honor of Earth Day 2016, we created an environmental wish list, if you will, for Long Island’s South Shore. Here goes.

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