Earth Decade

One month has passed since Earth day 2009 (today is Design Impact’s one month anniversary). Many of us participated and made some changes on April 22nd. You may have been asked last month what you did to celebrate Earth Day. A better question might be to ask now what have you done since Earth Day. Have any of your changes stuck? You probably have heard some say that ‘every day should be earth day’, that sustainability should become a built-in way of life for each of us. Some even go so far as to say we should throw out Earth Day, which has become a ‘feel good token’. I’m not sure we should eliminate Earth Day, but after 40 years we need to move on to something that fosters bigger impact and faster progress. Our efforts should be continuous; perhaps Earth Day could become our date for annual review. 

We need a more focused approach that goes beyond green choices one day per year, or even green daily choices year-round. We need to get familiar with the numbers that help us quantify and compare the impact our decisions make, and focus our efforts on things that will provide the most impact, particularly over the long term. As we learn more, it becomes clear that good individual choices can make a difference, but will not bring the large-scale change we need for our energy and agriculture systems. So instead of focusing all of our green efforts on whether we have unplugged our phone charger, or if we should skip beef for a day, let’s do as Joe Romm of Climate Progress advocates and ‘get political’. Let’s awaken the full power and creativity of our society and direct it toward changes that will lead to a sustainable future. 

Perhaps the something we need is an ‘Earth Decade’. Have a look at the WE Campaign, which has issued a challenge to the U.S. to ‘commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years’. This is the kind of vision and plan we need—one that is on the the scale of other grand mobilizations or transitions (think WWII and the space race). In the words of Al Gore: 

“our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of these challenges - the economic, environmental and national security crises. We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. … If we grab hold of that common thread and pull it hard, all of these complex problems begin to unravel and we will find that we’re holding the answer to all of them right in our hand. The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels. In my search for genuinely effective answers to the climate crisis, I have held a series of “solutions summits” with engineers, scientists, and CEOs.  In those discussions, one thing has become abundantly clear: when you connect the dots, it turns out that the real solutions to the climate crisis are the very same measures needed to renew our economy and escape the trap of ever-rising energy prices. Moreover, they are also the very same solutions we need to guarantee our national security without having to go to war in the Persian Gulf.”

I believe we can solve this. Let’s declare an Earth Decade. Let’s unify and get moving.