One earth, one people
Editorial
Guyana Chronicle
April 22, 2004
GUYANA and the rest of the world are celebrating Earth Day 2004 today, under the theme, One Earth, One People.
So true! For no matter how high into space we aim and eventually ascend, and in spite of the passion with which we profess animosity toward and try to harm one another, we remain in the eyes of humanity one people on one earth.
It seems, then, that the only choice of those of us who prize the gift of life is to adopt an environment-friendly lifestyle.
That's exactly what U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson had in mind when he founded Earth Day back in 1969.
Not that it was easy. As Sen. Nelson himself noted recently (he celebrated his 89th birthday on March 22), the idea for Earth Day "evolved over a period of seven years starting in 1962."
For several years it had been troubling him that the state of the environment in the United States was simply a non-issue in the politics of that country. He easily persuaded President Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy to place environmental protection onto America's national political agenda. But it wasn't until November 30, 1969, he recalled, "that the germ of the idea of reversing environmental degradation ultimately flowered into Earth Day."
Today, focus on the environment is legion.
At the initiative of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Canada's Environmental Management System and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), billions of dollars in cash and technical support are invested in countries around the world each year to reverse the degradation that threatens our environment.
On top all that is happening, UNEP convened a Global Ministerial Environment Forum in the Republic of Korea March 29 to 31 that analyzed the environmental dimension of water, sanitation and human settlements. And Canada's National Film Board is producing Artic Mission, a five-part series on climate change, in a bid to promote public awareness of the devastating and irreversible effects of environmentally unfriendly temperature, wind patterns and precipitation on the world's resources.
In Guyana, we're taken up trying to address the inherited legacy of unbridled logging and mining, heavy metal contamination of soils and sediments, poisoning of water resources, pesticide contamination, highly polluting liquid and solid wastes, and loss of life-sustaining ecological resources.
With the help of the international donor community, Guyana drafted a National Environmental Action Plan and on June 5, 1996 formally launched the Guyana Environmental Protection Agency.
But littering remains a big problem here. So in celebration of Earth Day today, the staffers of the U.S. Embassy plan to spend time in a commendable demonstration of how to keep our environment clean.
Embassy employees will be spending their Earth Day lunch hour picking up garbage surrounding their facility and the nearby sea wall. And they are encouraging Guyanese businesses and private citizens to take 20 minutes and clean up the public thoroughfares near their places of work and homes.
"By publicly showcasing our mutual commitment to keeping Guyana cleaner and greener for our children," they said in a statement Tuesday, "we will help to change attitudes about littering and protecting our environment. Increased individual responsibility will secure Guyana's valuable natural resources for future generations while encouraging growth of investment and tourism today."
The least we can do is show that we care by doing what is right and making the Earth Day theme, One Earth, One People, a reality.