{"id":52693,"date":"2020-04-22T08:32:20","date_gmt":"2020-04-22T13:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=52693"},"modified":"2020-04-22T08:32:21","modified_gmt":"2020-04-22T13:32:21","slug":"earth-day-50-under-lockdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=52693","title":{"rendered":"Earth Day 50, Under Lockdown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/stories\/2020-04-22\/earth-day-50-under-lockdown\/\">Earth Day 50, Under Lockdown<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/sybylla-climate-QFe0S0rahX8-unsplash-1440x1080.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">April 22 was supposed to be a day of global celebration and protest. Fifty years ago, up to ten percent of Americans participated in thousands of local events on the first Earth Day. That mass action, which would have been widely commemorated this year, propelled early environmental policy victories that, in the U.S., included the establishment of the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Environmental Protection Agency<\/a>&nbsp;(1970), as well as the passage of the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/laws-regulations\/summary-clean-water-act\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Clean Water Act<\/a>&nbsp;(1972) and the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/laws-regulations\/summary-endangered-species-act\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Endangered Species Act<\/a>&nbsp;(1973).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But nature threw a curveball\u2014a virus that has us all huddling indoors and physically distancing ourselves when we occasionally venture out for food or exercise. Instead of massing in parks and at city halls on a spring day, North American nature lovers will be clicking and swiping to attend&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.earthday.org\/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIx_D14OfW6AIVjYvICh1H-Q_sEAAYAyAAEgISL_D_BwE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">online digital Earth Day events<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A revival of interest in this annual occasion was long overdue. The past five decades saw early policy successes fade gradually into an apathetic status quo. New regulations, passed in the 1970s up through the \u201990s, had reduced sulfur dioxide pollution from coal power plants, cleaned up rivers, and greatly reduced the smog in big cities like Los Angeles. Pro-business commentators took this as evidence that the world\u2019s environmental problems were essentially solved. But most&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1002\/smj.2656\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">pollution had just moved overseas<\/a>&nbsp;to China and India, where so many of our products are now manufactured. On the whole, Earth is far&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.indiebound.org\/book\/9781760110468\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">more polluted<\/a>&nbsp;today than it was in 1970. Indeed, so much plastic is accumulating in the oceans that, by 2050, it may&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/plastic-in-ocean-outweighs-fish-evidence-report-2017-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">outweigh all the fish<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earth Day 50, Under Lockdown April 22 was supposed to be a day of global celebration and protest. Fifty years ago, up to ten percent of Americans participated in thousands of local events on the first Earth Day. That mass action, which would have been widely commemorated this year, propelled early environmental policy victories that, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[141,2144,1081,855],"class_list":["post-52693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-climate-change","tag-lockdown","tag-richard-heinberg","tag-viral-pandemic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52693"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52694,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52693\/revisions\/52694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}