Next week marks the 51st anniversary of Earth Day, that optimistic ’70s event that seemed an overdue awakening to the threat of human activity to our natural world. Thanks to the Clean Air Act of 1963, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, and the Clean Water Act of 1973, the air is more breathable and the rivers more swimmable, but the overall health of the planet is worse than ever.
More than a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, we are seeing welcome signs of a cleaner planet. With fewer planes in the skies and cars on the roads, the air quality has improved markedly in the past year. But there are also signs that these modest gains will not continue.
Traffic is picking up again, and people are making vacation plans far from home. We all want to get our old lives back; the trick is to do it with a new sense of responsibility for the increasingly fragile Earth we share.
It took a pandemic to bring our 21st-century world to a halt and clear our air, a stark reminder of how much the health of our planet depends on us. It’s time to renew the promise of that first Earth Day, which seemed to galvanize an entire planet 51 years ago and is more urgent now than ever.
