Earth Day The and Now 2021
Channel: Western Cuyahoga Audubon
Date: 20/04/2021

Earth Day The and Now 2021 with Gloria Ferris, Western Cuyahoga Audubon Society 

EARTH DAY Then And Now

In 1970, I attended my first Earth Day on the campus of Bowling Green State University. It was a bright, sunny day with speeches on the commons, groups of students singing folk songs accompanied by guitars, tambourines, and sticks.

I was using sidewalk chalk to draw flowers, peace signs, and "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem".  A long haired, bespectacled, skinny guy stopped to inform me that the phrase referred to nuclear proliferation and had nothing to do with the environment. I paused, thought to myself how does nuclear proliferation not have an impact on the environment, looked up at him, smiled and continued drawing with chalk dusted hands. We thought the world would change quickly and be a better place.

Forty years later, I realize how we as humans are resistant to change. It took rivers burning, disastrous oil spills, the loss of acres and acres of rainforests, the deaths of millions of birds, the extinction of many species   and much more for the world to tip and know that we can no longer afford to wait and see. 

All during those years, advocates, scientists, legislators, and everyday people who have improved our air, water, and land, but we can no longer have the luxury of letting George do it. Action is needed.

It is sad to know that today many children have a fear of nature. We as adults who played barefoot in meadows and streams, hiked through stands of woods literally when stepping out our back door had a hard time reconciling the world of today's youth. Many of us recognize it, many of us do not accept the impact of not knowing our interconnectedness to nature, and some of us are working to change it.

Western Cuyahoga Audubon is a chapter of the National Audubon Society based in Cuyahoga County in Northern Ohio, USA. WCAS seeks to connect and educate the public and conserve natural habitats for the sustainability of all bird species.