Earth Day (wink wink)

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In a bit of continuation from my mini-rant last week about BCorps and the bullshit companies have been trying to sell us on their operations and specifically, their impact on people and planet, comes Earth Day, the biggest greenwashing event of the season.

This year I've managed mostly to avoid all that nonsense, but everyone, it seems, is on board these days with saving the world. Except, really, well, those in the business of pillaging it are more in it for a buck or two. Like Nespresso, and their parent company, Nestlé, who has, if you're not aware, been syphoning water right from under us for many, many years. Thank God they have a shared value statement in their sustainability report. Earth spared once again.

I don't believe in Earth Day anymore, but I miss it. I used to love the occasion, which went back back decades to 1970 when 20 million people in America gathered together to show their love for this beautiful, life-sustaining planet and demand we take better care of it. I was a child then, but when I did finally become aware of the movement and its call to action I fell in love—and in line—with both feet. It is but one planet and we should do more to be better stewards of it.

Back in the early 90s, when I was in the Army I introduced Fort Bragg (now called something else less offensive) to Earth Day and gave readers ideas on how to treat the planet with more care. Refuse. Reuse. Recyle. That sort of thing. Though it was only a handful of articles I wrote I was happy to share something so meaningful to me, especially at a time when many of those readers were just like me, recently returned from the Persian Gulf War and in search of something that might cleanse themselves of the war-fighting mentality and embrace kinder, more peaceful endeavors.

Now, some thirty years later, we see all of our peaceful endeavors under assault from the maker of all things wrong with the world: capitalism. Companies are co-opting Earth Day with greenwashed slogans that confuse, appease and convince everyone into thinking they are not laying a trail of destruction in their path. After all, convince enough people that there's a problem with public drinking water and watch what happens? Both blame for the problem and the solution to fix it is shifted as those worried about contaminants coming from their tap (put there by incompetent public works operators) are encouraged to buy more bottled water. Cha-ching.

The problem is such that of course there may be contaminants in the drinking water, but the conversation to address it should neither begin nor end with some clever, though likely underpaid, office worker in some corporate marketing department. Unfortunately, that won't happen as long as companies are profiting off the problem and at the same time getting a free pass to what is our collective destruction of the planet. 

Even then, those articles I wrote, all penned with good intention, put the responsibility for keeping our planet healthy on the individual, not the machine. Were I to write them today, however, I would say that refuse, recycle and reuse is not enough. Voting with our wallets is not enough. Electing the right politician is not enough.

What is the answer, I haven't any idea. I know that looking at one another and asking what are you doing to save the world is not the right direction. Society, at least in developed nations, does not accommodate doing different. It accommodates doing the same. That's how people are controlled. And that's pretty much where we are in 2024. Dare to be different? Not on Nestlé's watch.

This particular Earth Day we did not celebrate at all. In fact, we drove in the car for some six hours, because we wanted to check out a little slice of Sicily that we'd not visited before. Is it what I would have preferred? No, not at all. Even then though, we did spend some time enjoying lunch by the sea. A place one can still go, I believe, to feel as if you coexist in harmony with nature, not above it.

And maybe the answer is buried in there somewhere. Maybe we all need to take some of the pressure off ourselves to be perfect and instead explore the possibility that being good stewards of the planet requires a more quotidian effort. For instance, not letting the water run when brushing your teeth. Or when making pasta, start the water boiling in a tea pot, which is faster and more efficient. Or simply looking at the things you own and telling yourself, it's enough. That shirt there, those pants, they're all I need. They may not be made by hand, or even by a person, but it's what you have and for now, for the challenges ahead of us, maybe that's really enough.

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Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoy your week.

Alla prossima,

SLG