Tomorrow — Tuesday, April 22nd — will mark the 55th anniversary of Earth Day. The power of those 20 million voices that came out on the streets on that first Earth Day decades ago led the U.S. to create the Environemental Protection Agency and the first generation of environmental laws addressing clean air, clean water, and the threat of toxics.

Fast forward to today. Under the “Our Power. Our Planet” banner, EARTHDAY.ORG, the global organizer of Earth Day, is calling on people from all walks of life to join in “Earth Action Day”—an effort to once again mobilize people power to tackle the current generation of environmental crises.

Last year was a disaster for the planet and its people. According to NASA, 2024 was the warmest year since temperatures began being recorded in 1880. In the U.S. alone, there were 27 climate and weather events resulting in at least a billion dollars of damage — second only to 2023 with 28 such events.

While a number of factors have contributed to the increase in these catastrophic events, research demonstrates that "human-caused climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of certain types of extreme weather that lead to billion-dollar disasters—most notably the rise in vulnerability to drought, lengthening wildfire seasons in the Western states, and the potential for extremely heavy rainfall becoming more common in the eastern states.”

The news about plastic pollution is similarly dark. Earth Action reported that on last September 5 – Plastic Overshoot Day – the amount of plastic waste exceeded the capacity of waste systems to manage. An estimated 220 million tonnes of plastic waste were expected to be produced in 2024, with 66 percent of the population living in places where the amount of waste exceeds local capacity. While negotiation of a strong global treaty on plastics last year held forth the promise of handling some of these issues, negotiators failed to reach an agreement and the talks drag on while the industry continues to pollute year after year.

All of this is taking place in the face of increasing scientific news about the harmful impacts of plastics on humans and their health. World Wildlife........

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