Celebrate Earth and Invest in Our Planet

Earth Day 2023″ Invest in our planet

Rachel Carson noted in 1964 that humanity’s “attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we have now acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature. But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself? [We are] challenged as mankind has never been challenged before to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves” (as quoted here).  Her words actions, and books make her one of the midwives of the modern environmental movement.

In her April 21, 2023 “Letter, historian Heather Cox Richardson traces the story of Earth Day to the moment where “Gaylord Nelson, a Democratic senator from Wisconsin, visited the Santa Barbara oil spill and hoped to turn the same sort of enthusiasm people were bringing to protests against the Vietnam War to efforts to protect the environment. He announced a teach-in on college campuses, which soon grew into a wider movement across the country. Their “Earth Day,” held on April 22, 1970, brought more than 20 million Americans—10% of the total population of the country at the time—to call for the nation to address the damage caused by 150 years of unregulated industrial development. The movement included members of all political parties, rich Americans and their poorer neighbors, people who lived in the city and those in the country, labor leaders and their employers. It is still one of the largest protests in American history.”

Today we celebrate the 53rd anniversary of Earth Day– the day when people of Earth first came together to officially recognize the gifts of the planet we call home, the birth of the modern environmental movement. Over the past 50 years, we’ve made a lot of progress to protect our home planet from pollution and resource extraction. Land is being protected, and rewilding efforts like these in Chile and Argentina have returned animals to their homes, restoring ecosystems from soils to the skies. Organic produce and other products are easier to find– including in wine, thanks to a few pioneers in conservation, permaculture, biodynamics, agroecology, and regenerative organic viticulture. Read more about Chile’s biodynamic pioneers here and about California’s Tablas Creek here.

This year’s Earth Day Theme is “Invest in Our Planet.” Will you take action? What will you do?  Say you will…