In Our View: Celebrate Earth Day every day with actions

A headline in The Columbian this week seemed appropriate, if a bit understated.

“It’s a spring thing: In Clark County it’s Earth Day all week,” read an article in Tuesday’s paper. Indeed, it is Earth Day all week, with various events scheduled to acknowledge the unofficial holiday that falls on Monday. Several opportunities are available for local residents to volunteer for Earth-enriching endeavors.

The events are reminders that in the Northwest, a region rich with nature’s bounty, many of us try to treat every day as Earth Day. That includes being cognizant of behaviors that pose a risk to our planet.

It is fitting, therefore, that Earth Day has strong ties to Clark County. Denis Hayes, coordinator of the initial celebration in 1970, grew up in Camas and graduated from Clark College before attending Stanford University. Since helping to launch the observance — which was the brainchild of Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson — Hayes has been a leader in the environmental movement. In 1999, Time magazine lauded him as “Hero of the Planet.”

Hayes’ path in environmentalism demonstrates the fits and starts that have affected the movement. During the Jimmy Carter administration, he headed the federal government’s solar energy research effort; the program’s budget was slashed when Ronald Reagan entered the White House.

In 1993, Hayes said: “I think that the greatest crime against the environment will be the decision early on in the Reagan years to shut down the renewable energy development program to the extent that they could. … Research that was being done on solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and other renewable, sustainable, safe, benign, resilient, decentralized energy sources came to a halt.”

In recent years, the obvious threat of climate change has brought focus to the long-lasting impact of such environmental decisions. Government policy can seem out of reach to the average citizen, but as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration stresses, “Protecting our planet begins with you.” The administration’s website offers 10 simple recommendations for helping the environment, including “Reduce, reuse, recycle,” “conserve water” and “plant a tree.”

Perhaps most important is the recommendation to become educated about environmental issues: “When you further your own education, you can help others understand the importance and value of our natural resources.”

Such education includes an emphasis on the impact of a warming planet. As the website for NASA explains: “While Earth’s climate has changed throughout its history, the current warming is happening at a rate not seen in the past 10,000 years. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ‘Since systematic scientific assessments began in the 1970s, the influence of human activity on the warming of the climate system has evolved from theory to established fact.’ ”

A vast majority of climate scientists agree that the burning of fossil fuels is a primary driver of that change, which is leading to rising sea levels, more intense weather events and changes to agriculture and wildlife habitat.

Such threats can seem daunting, but they should serve as a reminder of our personal responsibility. That responsibility manifests in tree plantings, garden rejuvenations and educational seminars through the weekend.

The events are billed as Earth Day festivities. But as Clark County residents like to demonstrate, every day is Earth Day.