Earth Day, April 22; Earth Sunday, April 25, 2004:Why Only Two Days?

Linda B. Rimer, Environmental Stewardship Committee Chair

Every day of the year, "24/7" as the popular phrase describes it, our planet Earth, God's creation, sustains us. It provides water for us to drink, air for us to breathe, and land upon which we all depend - as do all the plants and animals on this amazing planet. And beginning on April 22, 1970, we, as a society, began setting aside one day a year to acknowledge and appreciate all of these gifts from Earth. This was the date of the first Earth Day (see: http://www.eaglecondor.org/earthday.htm for a history of Earth Day).

Recognizing that God gave us the Earth and entrusted us to "till and to keep it" (Genesis 2:15), many people of faith began to also celebrate the Sunday closest to Earth Day each year as Earth Sunday. This year that Sunday is April 25 and the emphasis is on air. As the National Council of Churches describes it: "the life-giving breath of God."

We all know that air is essential and that we cannot live without it. An average person breathes in over 3000 gallons of air each day. And pound for pound, children breathe 50% more air than adults, making them more susceptible to airborne pollution.

Those of us old enough to remember what air quality was like in our urban centers back in the 1970s can't help but be impressed with the improvements that have resulted from 30 plus years of environmental laws and regulations.

But the problems of air pollution have not disappeared, only changed. Today we are confronted with less visible threats, including:

• Smog (ground level ozone), which harms our lungs as well as plants and crops
• Airborne mercury that gets deposited in our rivers and streams and taken up into the tissue of fish
• Acid rain, which results from airborne sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides that return to earth in rain, snow, and fog, destroying trees and increasing the acidity of rivers and streams
• Depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer, the protective layer that shields us from ultraviolet radiation from the sun
• Haze that hides the beauty of our land
• Global climate change. (For more information on air pollution, see: http://www.epa.gov/ebtpages/air.html)

The major sources of air pollution include: power plants that burn fossil fuel (coal, oil, natural gas) to generate energy; cars, trucks, buses, and planes; and industrial factories and processes. . . in other words, us. So one of the most effective ways we can protect our air is to consume less energy.

The environmental stewardship article in the November, 2003, Cross Roads focused on energy and suggested many ways in which we all can consume less energy. On this Earth Day and Earth Sunday, take time to reflect especially on the air that we breathe. Go outside, take a deep breath, look up at the sky and ask yourself, is it enough to be good environmental stewards one or two days out of the year? Doesn't the God that created us and this planet expect more of us? Learn more about our planet, do all you can to protect our air, water and land, support policies that protect the Earth, get involved - be a good environmental steward 24/7. (For ideas on how to reduce your energy consumption, see: http://www.eere.energy.gov/energy_savers/)