Is Earthday entirely ineffectual?

[roymond]

Am I out of it or is Earthday so niche that it hasn't grabbed my attention this year until just now (yes me, who brought you Feathers) ?

There was a time when there was some build-up to events, lectures, publications, skinny dipping. Where's the vision gone? Are you a part of it? Should this be a poll?

[Kamakura]

Am I out of it or is Earthday so niche that it hasn't grabbed my attention this year until just now

I'm must be out of touch as well. This is the first time I knew today was Earthday.

Not good news for the planet.

[mico saudad]

Well I think maybe if our government was more like <a href="http://www.dwphotoshop.com/photoshop/te ... lowers.jpg" target=_blank>this</a> and less like <a href="http://www.ogdenfinancial.com/images/oi ... ck%204.jpg" target=_blank>this</a>

We might have heard something about earth day.

(Britain on the other hand is about to assume the presidency of the G8 and Blair has stated that their main foci will be on the environment and in trying to keep Africa from imploding. If only I had a leader who gave a shite.)

[j$]

It's all over google. Literally. can't get much better advertising than that.

And http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q= ... 5%22&meta= shows you how much is going on.

It could be bigger, I suppose. But I wouldn't put us all in our enviromental grave just yet.

[roymond]

It's all over google. Literally. can't get much better advertising than that.

Yeah, today it's all over Google. It wasn't yeaterday. What good is that? Am I going to join a demonstration? Create art to share? Write music to celebrate? Too late, dude.

[Hoblit]

ahh earth day...the only day I've ever been on TV (Third grade in Ann Arbor, MI) when I was asked what earth day meant to me by a journalist. I said something about 'tigers'. This is all I remember.

[fodroy]

i didn't even know about it until i read this thread.

what good is a holiday that celebrates something good if it's ony kept alive for a day a year anyways? hey, let's all recycle today and then go back littering and driving our suvs tomorrow! it's like everyone being nice on christmas and pretending that they like their family and then going back to the normal bitterness on the 26th.

[sparks]

Shit. Here I was expecting Earth Day to solve all the world's problems.

I'm glad someone brought this to my attention.

NEXT: Is Mother's Day really a shallow lie perpetuated as culture by the greeting card industry?? OMG CONTROVERSY

[Dan-O from Five-O]

Question: Is Earth Day entirely ineffectual?

Answer: Yes

Reason: Apathy

[Hoblit]

Question: Is Earth Day entirely ineffectual?

Answer: Yes

Reason: Apathy

so what.

[sparks]

Earth Day would REALLY MATTER if we ALL got on board and wore CONSERVATION HUES, people. Just paint a big blue earth on your face and dunk your balls in the urinal all day fucking long, that's the way to get things done. Come on, guys, let's have a march! I really, really like LEAVES.

No, really, who cares?
(Reason: Violent Apathy)


I'm all for a progressive approach to environmental policy, but celebrating Earth Day is worse than apathy. It's apathy disguised as giving a damn. What a bunch of crap, guys. If you want to celebrate Mother Mudslides-and-Mosquitos, that's fine, but don't call it apathy when I laugh at your $5 screen-printed "Don't Tread On Me" shirt and call you a putz for giving a damn about this God-awful made-up holiday.

[j$]

... giving a damn about this God-awful made-up holiday.

All holidays are made up. Putz.

If you act agressively passionate about everything, you risk looking like you're actually not passionate about anything. Ha.

j$

[john m]

That's a bit pedantic, don't you think? I think it's pretty justified to say that Earth Day (and the like, Sweetest Day, etc) are 'made-up holidays' as opposed to more traditional holidays (all religious holidays, national independence days, etc) with a legitimate basis for existence other than corporations' desire for financial gain? I'm the first to admit (and rant) that all holidays have degraded to nothing more than consumerism, but I have a much easier time justifying Christmas than Sweetest Day.

[j$]

That's a bit pedantic, don't you think?

No, i don't, actually. The only difference between Xmas Day as it is now and Earth Day is the length of time that Xmas Day has been accepted.

In my head, the only reason for a holiday (a perfectly good one mind) is to give people time off work. Everything else is just decoration.

I think it's pretty justified to say that Earth Day (and the like, Sweetest Day, etc) are 'made-up holidays' as opposed to more traditional holidays (all religious holidays, national independence days, etc) with a legitimate basis for existence other than corporations' desire for financial gain

I may be misreading this, but it seems to be worded so you are saying that Earth Day's 'basis for existence' is 'corporations' desire for financial gain'??? I never got your Earth Day card, John

Actually days that celebrate a worthy cause with no gain are a better idea than those which have been hijacked by commerce. Still I would have liked yesterday off work, mind!

Anyway, I like to play devil's advocate with Sparks. He has so much energy and intelligence - it irks me slightly to see him wasting it on such an easy target ....

j$

[john m]

I meant to specify that Earth Day falls under the "worse than apathy" category Sparks detailed and I will not restate, but I was at work and had to uh, you know. Work.

And, I got the devil's advocate vibe, as I do with anyone replying to Sparks (it's natural), but I still felt there's a difference. Aside from terrible traffic (on roads and in stores) and horrendously irritating music, Christmas doesn't really have any negative repercussions. Earth Day gets a few people to pick up trash and plant trees for one day, but those same people turn around and spend the other 364 driving their SUVs. Is it better than spending all 365 days killing the Earth? Yeah, sure, but at least in the latter scenario people don't think they've done something decent.

Anyway, this is a lot of writing on a topic I sincerely don't care about. I wouldn't have known it was Earth Day unless this thread existed. Thread title point proven.

[sparks]

it irks me slightly to see him wasting it on such an easy target ....
j$

Oh come on, there's nothing else to work with this week! Politics and Other Crap has been really slow.

A good point, though, john, about Earth Day (and similar shit, not necessarily holidays) serving as moral Prozac. People like to have a redeeming cause, though, and I guess it doesn't hurt anyone if that cause is totally symbolic and meaningless and detatched from reality, like Earth Day or religion.

*quietly waits for welcome derailment*

Seriously, though, people need to realize that environmentalism is not about picking up litter. That's beautification. It's vanity, at best. Cigarette butts aren't out there running a risk of making the planet unlivable in the distant future, they just look out of place for two or three weeks until they disintegrate. Most "Earth Day" shit is similarly without logical focus.

All holidays are made up. Putz.

I think it's clear that by "made up" I didn't just mean "someone made it up". Christmas is a solid holiday for more reasons than that it's been around forever--it's got a religious basis, which gives it weight, no matter what its age.

If you act agressively passionate about everything, you risk looking like you're actually not passionate about anything.

Well, that's not totally incorrect.

[Future Boy]

Cigarette butts aren't out there running a risk of making the planet unlivable in the distant future, they just look out of place for two or three weeks until they disintegrate.

Ahem, 2 or 3 weeks? How about this (from here):

"So what's wrong with tossing out a cigarette butt? It makes them just GO AWAY, plain and simple, right? WRONG! Did you know that cigarette filters are made of cellulose acetate, which persists up to ten years in the environment, far longer than it takes to destroy the internal processes of the creatures that ingest them mistakenly as food."

I can tell you, all of the cigarette butts that were tossed in the snow this winter did not disintegrate in 2 or 3 weeks. They were still there when the snow melted. And then washed away with the rain, to god knows where.

*and now for something completely unrelated to litter*

I'd like to see the day when cars are illegal in big cities and more comprehensive public transport is installed (metros, buses with water for exhaust). There are really just too damn many cars about.

Also, it might not be so bad to have neighborhood incinerators so that people had to be responsible for the disposal of their own trash and see how much some things stink and/or never go away. Maybe it would change people's consuming habits if all of their trash had to stay in their own backyard.

[Justincombustion]

You can score good weed from hippies. If you can stand the smell. That's all I know about EarthDay.

[roymond]

Seriously, though, people need to realize that environmentalism is not about picking up litter. That's beautification. It's vanity, at best. Cigarette butts aren't out there running a risk of making the planet unlivable in the distant future, they just look out of place for two or three weeks until they disintegrate.

*** Warning : this isn't supposed to be nice ***

No, butts on the ground just sit there as proof of what disgusting idiots people who throw them on the ground are. Not only are they either ignorant or helpless about what smoking does to them and us, but their butts say "I don't care about the place I live. I love having trash about my feet as much as I do within my body. The butts litering the ground around me respresent the attitudes I have about my life in general." This has little to do with environmentalism.

*** Now I return to the tolerant fool I normally pretend to be ***

[Leaf]

Right on Roymond.

My wife smokes, and from the first day I met her, I made sure that the cigarette butts got picked up. Usually just bending over and picking it up yourself sends a good message to the person... via shame.

When I had band practices here many years ago , the smokers had to pick up the butts in my yard... assholes. Throw the butts in your own yard.


AS far as "real" versus "made-up" holidays... I can not believe anyone could argue that any holiday isn't made up. That doesn't make any sense at all. Each is a day picked to celebrate something. I see more harm in promoting families to consume (it's called Christmas) than one that says let's care about our environment.

Christmas places un-due pressure on many low-income families to mortage the months before and after the event simply to appease the expectations that arise from commercialism. It's not about giving and receiving (although it should be) it's about the value associated with those two terms.

hmmm... spend all your money so your kids, other relatives and friends can equate how much you care based on the value of the "gift" or clean up the environment to make the world a safer, healthier place.


I want to be clear here: the concept of Christmas as a celebration of Jesus' birth is fine... but that is not what the T.V. , print ads, radio ads and general attitude of the north american enviroment teach us from a young age. We are taught to expect absolute glory in the form of x box, gi-joe and barbie. This has NOTHING to do with the point of christmas. But try and tell that to your kids, "hey boys and girls, we're gonna give christmas a miss because we are not Christians..."

WE are so brainwashed we got people proclaiming that a day designed to promote a cleaner environment that would benefit alll is apparently more corporate than a day designed to make sure most retail business can survive until the next season.


I hope I didn't misquote anyone's intentions in my rant.
Also, I realize the point of this thread wasn't a christmas/envrionment battle. And I know very little about earth day. I still stand by the guts of my message.

[john m]

AS far as "real" versus "made-up" holidays... I can not believe anyone could argue that any holiday isn't made up.

I guess you were aiming that at me, so...

Christmas places un-due pressure on many low-income families to mortage the months before and after the event simply to appease the expectations that arise from commercialism. It's not about giving and receiving (although it should be) it's about the value associated with those two terms.

hmmm... spend all your money so your kids, other relatives and friends can equate how much you care based on the value of the "gift"

We are taught to expect absolute glory in the form of x box, gi-joe and barbie. This has NOTHING to do with the point of christmas.

... a day designed to make sure most retail business can survive until the next season.

I'm the first to admit (and rant) that all holidays have degraded to nothing more than consumerism

Either you're trying to convince me of a point I already made, or you're talking to Sparks.

Earth Day is ineffective. Its major downside, that people exert minimal effort and feel satisfied for a year, is not the fault of the day or those who decided to begin celebrating it, but the fault of an apathetic, uncaring, lazy society; that is my entire point, and perhaps I should have stated it this simply before. Environmentalism is a great thing; I only wish people would genuinely care about the condition of our world rather than feign it because it's the topic of the day.

[roymond]

Earth Day is ineffective. Its major downside, that people exert minimal effort and feel satisfied for a year, is not the fault of the day or those who decided to begin celebrating it, but the fault of an apathetic, uncaring, lazy society; that is my entire point, and perhaps I should have stated it this simply before. Environmentalism is a great thing; I only wish people would genuinely care about the condition of our world rather than feign it because it's the topic of the day.

John is wise. These things should be integrated into peoples' lifestyles, with holidays only emphasizing not sustituting.