Earth Day 2008

and now, I get on my soapbox (I feel like I dserve one of these per blog).

Hopefully most people know that tomorrow, April 22nd, is Earth Day. Unfortunately, that news has not seemed to sink in with the Argentine farmers, arguably some of the people who should be most concerned about it. They also, arguably, have a great opportunity to make a positive impact on the environment. So naturally they set 175,000 acres on fire to clear their fields and literally (as in this is not an exaggeration) choked Buenos Aires with smoke. The smoke blocked out the sun, burned eyes, reflected headlights and made everything smell like an ashtray. An 175,000 acre ashtray. It makes you realize why people in places like Mexico City and Beijing, people wear surgical masks whenever they step outside. These pictures don't really do it justice, but use your imagination.

The people are pretty upset, international papers are taking note, the president is flying around in her helicopter making speeches ("don't cough for me Argentina"..... terrible.... sorry) and the government is threatening to arrest anyone responsible for setting the blazes. Which is all well and good, but I image that after the smoke clears (as in goes up into the atmosphere) and everything gets backs to normal, people will simply forget and continue to ignore our impact on this planet.

One of our biggest impacts is global warming, which for most of us lacks the punch-you-in-your-face immediacy of a mouthful of smoke (though I would imagine a number of New Orleans residents would disagree with me). And without that immediacy, I think our governments and societies (in Argentina, in the US, in the world) are simply content to ignore these impacts until we are forced to deal with the consequences.

But luckily, societies are made up of individual people (ie you). And just like individual people managed to really fuck up the air in Buenos Aires (Spanish for "Good Air"), individual people (ie you) can really make a positive impact. Take a bus to work, recycle your beer bottles, give up the styrofoam coffee cup, get some rechargable batteries, plant a tree! There are millions of things you could do and just as many internet sites dedicated to this stuff - personally I like http://www.idealbite.org/. So rather than ignoring out impact on the world, use Earth Day (and my eloquent and compelling literary style) as a excuse to make a positive, concrete, healthy and hopefully fun change.

Feliz Dia de la Tierra!