Every day is earth day

If we really lived as though every day was Earth Day, I believe the world around us would today look a lot different.

First, if every day was Earth Day, all of us would know more about our earth. Earth Day wouldn’t be a one-day event. The information that is disseminated (and often too soon forgotten or put aside) on Earth Day would be added to every day. People would start to connect the dots that, say, recycling is better than tossing things out and that, perhaps, not buying that case of plastic water bottles in the first place is better than recycling. And that’s just a single example. The knowledge base increase would be huge and that can only be to the good.

If every day was Earth Day, we would treat the earth better. That would be second nature to us. Once you’ve seen a lady’s slipper blooming in your woods, could you cut down the woods where they grow? What would it look like today if we treated the earth as well as we treated our family’s pet cats or dogs?

If every day was Earth Day, I don’t think we’d have many lawns any more. I think we’d allow the forest or the prairie or to grow right up to our doorsteps. We would share the natural landscape, not try to dominate it or destroy it.

If every day was Earth Day, we wouldn’t need books like Last Child in the Woods. Kids would be in the woods and the streams and the prairies and meadows and playing in their front forests and sharing their front forests with the what normally grows and lives there.

If every day was Earth Day, I think we’d understand that have a whole other range of things to consider when we are choosing building sites. Maybe we’d still build that factory, but we might choose the site differently. And we’d be a lot more aware of and willing to properly dispose of whatever waste industry created.

If every day was Earth Day, maybe we’d still build that house, but we’d place the driveway so it wouldn’t disrupt the lady’s slipper, because we’d know the lady’s slipper was there.

Ah, if only every day was Earth Day.