Thoughts On Earth Day

Biohabitats’ Leaf Litter
Vol. 5 Number 2
http://www.biohabitats.com/ndg_newsite/newsletter/number.20/

Earth Day Blues
By Joseph Wiedle

I come from a region in Pennsylvania where the environment is a rather poignant issue. A few miles down the road, through mountains ravaged by the anthracite coal companies that took the precious, hard, and black fuel from under my ancestors, there is Centralia, PA. It is burning. On the side of the road, on colder autumn or winter days you can literally see steam and smoke rising and curling out of cracks in the ground. A fire started in one of the mineshafts, and raged out of control before the miners could quell it. So they left it. The fire found one of the largest veins of coal, and started in on it. It has been burning ever since. This is just the start of it.

I grew up in row homes that the mining companies threw up quickly to house the immigrants arriving from Staten Island, who were then sent sliding down dark, freezing holes underneath the mountains with little more than a canary and a lantern to help them see to their work. The steel factories in Allentown and Bethlehem needed heat. The workers and the environment paid pretty dearly supplying that heat.

Nowadays, all that is left of the dirty industry that berthed the first labor unions are the rusted, hollow, and ominous breakers dotting the landscape. There are huge mounds of slag, a mixture of coal particles and dirt, sitting next to the road just a half of a mile from my high school football field. Recently, a new burning method was devised, and the buzzard of industry landed on the mountain above my town in the form of a Coal Generation Plant. It can burn the slag at higher heats, and can squeeze what little energy there is left out of the slag, leaving behind a useless, ultra fine, red dust, which very large trucks place where the large piles of slag used to sit. Then, they level it off and plant sod over it. Virgin Pennsylvania forest replaced with bland, unnaturally flat, green fields, under which may or may not be a new environmental hazard. The townsfolk were complaining about having to wash the red dust off of their siding, while I was finishing up high school.

I had a Huck Finn-esque childhood. I was always in the woods with a pocket knife, fishing rod, and then later a shotgun. I love the outdoors. I camped. Just not near my house. We had to drive to places where Pennsylvania wasn't so scarred. So we did. My family would discuss the landscape, but in a shrugging way. "The coal companies came, and when the coal ran out, they left," my father would tell me. "Didn't anyone fight against the pollution?" I used to ask. "No," my father would say, "Things were different back then."

After leaving Pennsylvania, I was fortunate enough to travel quite a bit. I lived in Massachusetts, where it is very progressive, yet there still were not recycle bins on every block. Then I lived in France, where I saw that there were recycle bins everywhere. I saw lots of solar paneled stoplights, and intense pubic transportation. After France, I moved to California, and have eventually settled in Baltimore. This is funny, because the steel that was made in Allentown and Bethlehem was trucked down to Baltimore's harbor to leave the country on boats. The industry destroyed the bay. I have stood on Federal Hill and at Fort McHenry, and looked at the beautiful bay. I just won't dare swim in it.

Earth Day just passed. I recently read that John McConnell, founder of Earth Day, and his cohorts decided on March 21st, because it is the Spring Equinox, the day when night and day are equal. The earth's cycles are in balance. The first Earth Day was in 1970! That is less than 40 years ago. Has the earth only been important since then? Congress needed 5 more years to deliberate before they decided the earth was important enough to have its own holiday. Scary. I can see how naïve I was when asking my father about why no one punished the coal companies for polluting.

I am older now. I find myself with an environmental job, making schematic drawings that aid in the restoration and conservation of the environment. I am answering that question from my coal dusty childhood. I recycle. I compost. I recently (and only partially willingly) went carless. Still, however, I work with people at our firm who constantly are challenging me regarding what I eat, where it comes from, what I buy, where it comes from. I am learning to question these things myself. I must admit I have fallen into the humdrum of consuming without consequences at points in my life. I welcome the constructive criticism of my coworkers. I can always do more.

Earth Day passing reminded me of my torn up stomping grounds in Pennsylvania. No one does much about it. They just drive past it. That kind of gets to me, and it has since I was a boy. Perhaps in the future I can learn more about restoration efforts, and eventually make a difference back there. It is a goal of mine. Earth Day passing encourages me to be part of the solution, instead of the problem. It reinforces my decisions to work for the environment. It is an idealist's holiday, and I am an idealist with coal dirt under the skin of my knees and elbows.

(Click here for more information about the Centralia Mine Fire)

Is Earth Day Just Another One Of Those "Days?"
By Suzanne Hoehne

Googling Earth Day" now results in about 1.98 million hits. According to the U.S. government, "Earth Day is a time to celebrate gains we have made and create new visions to accelerate environmental progress. Earth Day is a time to unite around new actions. Earth Day and every day is a time to act to protect our planet." www.earthday.gov.

When Earth Day approaches, people plant trees, pick up trash, and do activities that "help" the earth. However, if most people were asked, on any other day, what they have done the past year to help the earth, they'd probably say, "I went to that event on Earth Day. . ." Is Earth Day becoming like other "days?" Is Earth Day becoming like Thanksgiving, where people only go serve dinner at a homeless shelter on that day? Is it now the norm to only do things to help the earth on one day?

Let's not forget that - matter how busy our lives get - to take the time and practice all that we preach on Earth Day everyday. For as the U.S. Government Says, "Every Day is a time to act to protect our planet." It will take all of us working together everyday to protect and restore the third rock from the sun, Earth.