I remember the first Earth Day — April 22, 1970. That we have made so little progress is deeply discouraging.
Here we are. It’s another Earth Day, 54 years since the first. We seem to be stalled. What Earth needs from us is not that we “do” more but that we stop doing stupid things. Like cutting down forests and dumping trash into our waters.
I find it hard to believe people think climate change is a myth. We can argue about how long it will take to make the planet uninhabitable but not that change is already happening faster than anyone expected. Maybe it’s because we think it’s entirely about gasoline, other burnable products, carbon emissions and the warming of the planet. It is those things among many others, but there’s a lot more to it. There’s no simple answer. Every answer will be different for each place on Earth. Climate isn’t one thing, everywhere. We all know that, right?
Regardless, doing nothing can never be an answer. Nor can one person or organization fix everything. This is a job for humankind. If as individuals we can’t fix the big things, surely each of us can do a little something. We can also try to bring into office people who might be able to take on bigger projects.
We have nothing to lose and everything to gain by making an effort. At the very least, we can stop destroying all the wild places to make the world more beautiful.
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Categories: celebration, Earth
EARTH DAY 2023 
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
It IS discouraging!
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It’s so sad that people don’t recognize the damage they are inflicting on this home of ours
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YES (see also my mini-rant to MianiMagus)
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beautifully said, Marilyn
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Thanks, but I wish I didn’t have to say it.
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Ironically, humanity did “more” for the Earth during the pandemic lockdowns. The lack of human activity sped up the regeneration of the planet earth. We should figure out how to replicate that success in our daily lives.
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I knew that things got a lot better when people stopped driving much. Also, a lot of people sat outside and watched the birds. That helped too. But greed always wins and greed is our god. We need to seriously rethink our priorities and not only here. We make a lot of noise about “fixing” things, but I’m not seeing it. I feed the birds and send what money I can afford to help causes, but it’s not much.
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We need a society wide transformation. And for that we need to divest and boycott from all governments and fund our own programs for change.
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I wish I believed we could do it, but I really am not seeing nearly enough concerned people ready to put their money in play. I give what I can, but there are so many people with a lot more money who apparently use all of it to buy stuff. We all have too much stuff without trying to get more. How much does ANYONE need?
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It also helped US humans to have a re-think on so many levels. During lockdown, I would have liked to shout it to my next ones and all that I appreciated the slower, more quiet way of living and moving forward and that it wasn‘t, by far, all bad….. Hero Husband would have liked to go physically to work, he complained that on screen you couldn‘t read your vis-à-vis‘s facial expression, couldn’t read their eyes – but hey ho, I had my man at home and although he was in another room, we could eat together, have a coffee break together. Long talks ensued, you may adjust perceptions and priorities. So, I think you are right, I‘m sure EARTH sighed a deep sigh during those times and got their hopes up!
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I agree with you 100% Kiki,
Actually a lot of Millennials and Zoomers said that the lockdown didn’t effect our daily lives because we were already shut ins. What did happen during that time is we didn’t feel lonely at all. We had our families with us. I was the one who calmed my mother down she says. I introduced her to watching movies and shows (Murdoch Mysteries from Canada has become our mother son show now).
Now we bond over movies and shows I introduce her to. Like Disney movies and family friendly stuff. But I also introduced her to dateline and Luther lol. I think Luther traumatized her. She never wants to go to England now.
She says there’s too many serial killers 😂. We were already united since before. But now it was better. She could actually sleep in. We took the dogs out together.
Appreciated the beauty of the day. We could take our time eating breakfast. Instead of rushing to do everything. She often says in this country, people are crazy or die faster because of the stress. I noticed all the neighbors outside were doing the same thing.
One man had a water slide and he and his family treated it like a beach day. The kids loved it. They got to eat ice cream with their grandpa. And not just that, the economic relief checks helped a lot of people pay off debts they were still years away from paying. It wasn’t all bad.
There were good things in that time. And it was nice to have more time finally! To read books. To write. To do whatever we wanted to do but couldn’t do before. Even my landlord had time to clean her house out and move furniture around she couldn’t do before.
It was just nice. Like one long summer vacation. Or at least it was in Florida until DeSantis ruined it. Governor DeFascist didn’t care about people dying. He wanted to stop the relief checks and get people back to work whether they wanted it or not.
And all these idiot loud mouth Republicans in Florida actually protesting the lockdown. Saying it was “tyranny” refusing to wear a mask. Persecuting anyone who talked about the real numbers of dead down here. They were the ones that made this time unnecessarily worse for us all here. But I remember we looked at that time with fear.
Now I look at it and realize that through all the darkness, there was at least some good in there. And the Earth definitely had a sigh of relief. In Venice, the waterways were so clear of garbage, that Dolphins were swimming there. Pollution and global warming actually started to REVERSE. With a simple cold front closing up one of the largest ozone holes ever made.
Air pollution started to decrease even in China where it’s among the worst countries to have pollution. And Earthquakes actually decreased if you can believe it. Scientists learned that human activity actually has a lot to do with natural disasters like Earthquakes. They discovered that without so many humans on the street, the amount of quakes slowed down. And they were able to study the real quake phenomena without humans adding to it.
I think that’s the one that surprised me the most. Oh! And the sea turtles got a huge benefit as well. Because of all those stupid tourists that bother them when they’re laying their eggs or hatching, sea turtles often survive in low numbers now. Because of humans chasing them or interfering with them. Because it’s “cool”.
But, without humans there, the highest number of sea turtle births happened in a long time. Unimpeded by humans. The only country that barely saw a change was Cuba. Because the CCP of Cuba uses Science to make policy. So they have the most preserved environment probably on par or second only to Norway.
They also have the best choral reef on earth. Because they actually have new generations of choral there. Though I am sure they must have had even better environmental impacts given the fact that they are greener than most countries. I wish they would give up dependence on oil factories though. Not only are they dangerous, but solar power would help the island better.
But anyways, I posted a special Random Links of the Day, Pandemic Edition during that time. It’s still my favorite Random Links post to this day. But people were too busy freaking out to bother reading it lol.
My favorite link in there is the guy that was waiting out the pandemic in a haunted ghost town.
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