by We, the Human Race, are born of a selfish breeding. We care not about the past or the future. We only care about our now — and that’s bad for the business of the world. Today is Earth Day, and I wonder if we should change the name to “Us
Day” in order to get broader, and more dedicated, involvement in the
scheme.
Sure, Earth Day is a great idea — but it has a branding problem — does Earth Day have a life beyond the moment of 24 hours every 365 days? No.
We need to find a way to bring the meaning of Earth Day home every single day, and I think we do that by changing the name of the day to “Us Day” to better reflect our most selfish cores and to plant our darkest seeds that, we hope, will eventually blossom beyond us. Perhaps even into a raunchier “Me Day” — but that’s too limited — because every day is “Me Day.”
Many of us believe the world will stop spinning without us and we lack the prescient immediacy of doing something right now to preserve the million-year future — so we need to trick ourselves with the self-delusion that we really only matter in the tempestuous “here” of the universe.
We think we’re in the last days, and that every precious resource belongs only to the sole self — and forget future generations — because, “Whats mine is mines and what is yours is mines.”
To change that narrow thinking, we need to infect the niche of the being with the healing notion that the world might just end sooner than we think — and that’s why we need to work together to put the “Us” before the “I” — even before the “Earth” if we ever hope to survive.
Perhaps the immediate “Us” will be more energetic in describing the “Earth” emergency that affects us all as it spins out of control.
It absolutely should be us day. It seems that in this day of increasing disposability, people need to be reminded every day that their throw away actions have long lasting effects.
Hi Gordon!
We certainly need to do something new. We’re living in a giant garbage dump of our own doing!
True … the garbage will outlive us!
The “unwanted” and “undesirable” disposable items have accumulated into an overwhelming mountain … and the landslide is swooping down taking out everything in it’s path. Will we ever … ever … recover from the old habits that put us in this state?
We must … or there will be no “Earth Day” for our children and grand children to celebrate.
That’s why I think the whole Earth Day celebration has been a failure, Kimberley. We may have laws that force/reward some recycling, but I don’t see a major change in conservation or economies of scale based on saving the earth. So we pretend to care one day a year and the rest of the time we’re buying more than than we could ever consume or properly get rid of rightly in the end.