Earth Week: Day 1

Today is the start of "Earth Week." James Lenfestey has a nice editorial in the Star Tribune: Earth Day at 50: 'There is no Planet B'. I particularly like the final paragraph:

As the nation fights through the COVID-19 pandemic toward the November elections, voters need to remember two facts. When asked in a Democratic debate if climate change is an existential crisis, every candidate answered yes without hesitation. Meanwhile, the Trump administration and its allies, including Russia and Saudi Arabia, do everything they can to prop up the struggling fossil-fuel industry while undoing regulations aimed at curbing the climate crisis. Planet Earth is on the ballot this November.

Environmental Cartoons by Joel Pett

I'm somewhat less than thrilled with the prospective choices we're likely to be offered come November. Then again, I can accept Lefenstey's assessment and, I believe, go him one better. Aldo Leopold, of "A Sand County Almanac" fame, long ago proposed a Land Ethic and the assessment that

A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.

There is no doubt in my mind which political party tends more to "preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community." It's not the Republicans. If you have, or hope to have, descendants, you might want to use Leopold's assessment as a filter for judging candidates. Yes, I'd much prefer to have a president way more progressive than old Joe. But, even these days of the COVID-19 pandemic, I much prefer the party of life to the party of death to all but the top 1%. How about you?

What I Have Learned So Far

by Mary Oliver

Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,
looking into the shining world? Because, properly
attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause? I don't think so.
All summations have a beginning, all effect has a
story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.
Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of
light is the crossroads of -- indolence, or action.
Be ignited, or be gone.

From: 

New and Selected Poems 

Copyright ©: 

Mary Oliver 

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