Today is Earth Day 2022. You’re going to see a deluge of preachy posts on social media. You’ll probably hear a lot of depressing facts about the only supply of air we breathe and the water we drink. I know it can all seem crushing; I get overwhelmed by it. You’ll read posts blaming one thing or another, one person, group, or another.
Humans love to react to stuff,
Let’s put aside blame for a minute and talk about action because that will address the issue. After all, in truth, we’re all to blame. The number one thing that we can all do, far more potent than recycling, using LED bulbs, and driving electric vehicles, is to write to our leaders at all levels of government. Demand they adjust the policies and laws of our communities, states, and nations.
I understand we’ve got some political differences, but I think those are usually wrapped up in the choices of solutions rather than the issues we face. Even my politically conservative friends recognize our species is damaging the Earth in terrible, needless ways.
It’s not that we didn’t do the things. The small changes we were told to do and promised would change the trajectory of the issues affecting our planet’s ability to sustain human life haven’t worked out as planned. The scale of the problem is so massive that it will take a lot more of us doing more and doing it now, not in the future when we think the need is dire.
It’s dire now.
The tricky part is that it feels like things are a bit worse than they were a couple of decades ago, but they don’t feel “dire,” so we’re tempted to wait. Humans love to react to stuff, but we’re not so good on the proactive side.
So, it’s dire. We need to do many things and do them now, not later. What positive impact can individuals have that they aren’t already? Thankfully, a lot! We’ve probably all heard the negative stories about how recycling doesn’t work or that most of it goes to the landfill despite diligently doing our part at home.
Instead of joining the cynics on critical issues, let’s demand our communities fix their recycling programs, so they work as advertised! Letter and email writing campaigns are a low-effort way to bubble essential issues to the surface and get them and proposed solutions in front of politicians. However, you don’t need to provide solutions to demand a change in how we do things. We don’t all do our taxes. Our accountants do them. We don’t all have to have solutions to climate issues. We have environmental sciences for that!
The time is now. We can no longer wait. We all breathe this air and drink this water. So pick a cause that impacts you or speaks to you. The overuse of plastics, PFAS chemical contamination in drinking water, making recycling programs work, eliminating fossil fuel-powered vehicles are good starting points. Promise yourself you’re going to write a politician once a week for a year. USA.gov has a great way to figure out who your elected officials are. (Sorry, international folks, I don’t have links for everyone, leave them in the comments if you know them for your country!) Click here.
I also have a page on this site explaining what I’m doing with my business to reduce its environmental impact. Click here to read about that.
If you’re looking for actions beyond writing to politicians, many of the causes you’re writing about have organizations associated with them. Do a little online searching, find a group, and do the work.
We’re literally all in this together.
