We were bombarded last week with news stories about Earth Day. Earth Day is a good and noble cause that has become a breast-beating mea culpa for our collective environmental sins. Virtually every one of the news stories about Earth Day recounted how bad things are and how we are in danger of burning up due to global warming.
Bring on the global warming! It was the chilliest April on record in many parts of the country, and the coolest I can remember in Chicago. My point is that the media always do what they can to sensationalize oscillations in temperature that 50 years ago we didn’t even know existed, even though they surely did just as it snows every winter here. I support Earth Day, but I think we should focus on something positive for once and celebrate all the good things we have done to improve our planet since the first Earth Day 30 years ago. True, there may be a long way to go, but let’s stop beating ourselves up and take credit for the long way we’ve come in cleaning up centuries worth of pollution and toxicity in a matter of three decades. Let’s cheer about something for once instead of getting sucked into the usual medical hype of impending doom.
