A climate scientist and a climate change denier walk into a bar. The denier says, bartender, what is your strongest whiskey.The bartender says, this one here. It’s 95 percent alcohol. The denier slams down his fist and leaves the bar in a hurry. The scientist says, you know, that’s the problem with these guys. You show them the proof, and they still don’t buy it.
With that I gave up my internet search for Earth Day jokes. However, we cannot give up the intentions for which Earth Day was created in 1971. The inspiration for Earth Day arose from counterculture. It was a time following the lead of the civil rights movement, when many other groups organized to challenge oppression.
“My generation” as Pete Townsend called post WWII baby boomers, were agents of change and cultural upheaval. Music reflected a growing questioning of authority and a tuning into a collective awakening of consciousness. Hippies followed beatniks like Alan Ginsberg and disliked Richard Nixon.
Ecology was part of the growing social consciousness. Hippies were starting communes as part of a “get back to the land” movement. Rachel Carson’s 1962 Silent Spring, alerted to the effects of the pesticide DDT. One year after the first Earth Day, DDT was banned.
Hippies, and flower power peaceniks believed that the establishment was corrupt. The counterculture saw that capitalism while generating affluence, corporations got wealthy by robbing the commonwealth, poisoning the land, air and water that we all depend on for life. Earth Day amplifies the need to protect the ecosystems that are responsible for human health and thriving. It asks us to intervene against corporations that profit while polluting.
Because it seeks to restrain business from harming the environment, Big Business began a propaganda war that has continued all these 55 years. It seeks to turn public opinion against environmentalists, liberals, and governmental regulations. Corporations spend billions to incite hate against those who would organize humans for the protection of our blue boat home. They mock our intelligence. They have tried to convince the populace that liberals are elites who care only about endangered spotted owls and don’t care for the jobs of those employed in the (clear cutting) timber industry.
Corporations gone wild are transforming our nation into an oligarchy. There has been massive wealth redistribution away from most people and into the hands of a few super rich. First antitrust laws were weakened. Media outlets were taken over by a small number of corporations. Next environmental Protections were gutted. So too were many human rights.
Intelligent beings experience distress when they are threatened. This distress has been treated as individual medical dysfunction, to avoid addressing the deeper causes of growing human distress and dysfunction. Chaos and environmental degradation – in the full sense of that phrase, have stimulated human despair, addiction, destructive and antisocial behavior.
Widespread suffering, addiction and despair present corporations with opportunity. A desperate, hurting and disempowered populace can more easily be divided, subjugated and exploited. So repressive forces promote distrust of people as inherently sinful, and out to get you. It’s an attempt to keep us from organizing for our collective needs.
Despite attacks on environmentalism, people still love Earth Day, and it’s call for ecological organizing has never been more important. In this era, who will be the promoters of hope?
Unitarian Universalist Tradition expressed by 20th century Unitarian theologian James Luther Adams tells us that human history demonstrates that optimism is justified, AND that we must find reason for optimism.
I asked 3 volunteers to report instances of science leading to restoration of ecosystems. Thank you Mike, Kevin and Ann for giving us reason to believe in the value of addressing ecological devastation and threat!
In two weeks I’ll lead a service about embracing uncertainty. I’ll briefly jump in and show how to apply the topic to the concerns of Earth Day.
It seems that humans often have difficulty with uncertainty. Penny, who is working on the service, gave me a gem. She said that sometimes we believe or cling onto some horrible conclusion because that’s sort of easier than sit with the uncertainty of not knowing what will happen. If we disapprove of something another person has done, we may insist that now things will go badly rather than dealing with the complexity of the possibilities. Sometimes we might choose certainty that our observations, perceptions and thoughts are 100% accurate, to avoid having to deal with uncertainty.
A different form of this tendency toward certainty looks like denial and outright dismissal of concerns. There are people who ignore and deny “climate change.” They deny the research evidence showing significant and rapid increases of annual temperatures. They deny the increase in number of weather disasters. They deny the correlations and facts proving that climate change is caused by human activity, specifically levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Some deniers are motivated because their jobs and fortunes depend on them ignoring human concerns no matter how grave. People employed or invested in certain industries knowingly deceive the public. They ignore and deny the consensus among 98+% of scientists about climate change. They speak as if climate change is still up for debate. They are defending against what they perceive as a threat to their profit. They deny their culpability. They deny the need to take action to avoid harm.
Earth Day is viewed as a secular holiday. We can embrace it as an opportunity to practice our religion. Our liberal religion aims to realize the elusive reality of our interdependence. We seek to reverse the historic tradition of striving for dominion over Earth. We wish to challenge the messaging of many religious traditions that see nature and bodies as sinful. We seek to recognize the infinite within that which appears to be finite. We strive to recognize the divine within nature, humanity and daily life. To orient ourselves to the Holy, to cultivate a sense of reverence requires practice and discipline. It requires cultivating our religious impulse.
Therefore, let us see in Earth Day an opportunity to grow our consciousness and help us develop habits to live righteously on a daily basis. We seek to be in right relationship with Earth and all our Earthly kin.
Be priests of this new religion. Perform its rituals, find or create the words that you wish to recite on Earth Day. Perform religious acts that celebrate Earth every day. “Earth is our mother, she will take care of us. Earth is our mother. We must take care of her. “
All are relatives. To All our Relations, Ashe’. Blessed Be.
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