By Ann Manasche

Earth Day was born in 1970 at a time when the winds of change were transforming the globe in the direction of peace, social justice, and environmental consciousness. Twenty million people demonstrated that day to save the planet that gives us life and sustains us and all living things. And they had an impact—the first Earth Day led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts.

So how are the environmental movement and the planet doing these days, 41 years later? I wish I had better news to report. We still celebrate Earth Day, but the events have gotten a lot tamer. We don’t march in the streets anymore; instead we stroll through the park and visit the booths, including those of polluting corporations like SDG&E and Hewlett-Packard, intent on “green-washing” themselves. To them, Earth Day is just another marketing opportunity.

As for the earth, we are now in even deeper doo-doo, confronting a planetary crisis of monumental proportions. Our society’s addiction to fossil fuels has unleashed climate change on all of us, with rising average temperatures, more severe weather patterns (remember Katrina?), and rising sea levels that are already threatening coastal communities.
And it is only going to get worse.

We have wars for oil in the Middle East and devastating oil spills back at home. We have nuclear power disasters like the one unfolding at the Fukushima Daicchi plant spreading its invisible poison through the soil, water, animals, and the food supply throughout Japan and beyond. Yet our elected officials, from the president on down, continue to sit on their hands, pushing oxymorons like “clean coal” and “safe nuclear,” indifferent to the fate of their children and grandchildren. How can that be? In the face of this crisis, why aren’t our politicians calling for a massive investment in renewables like wind and solar, mass transit and zero-emission vehicles?

Just follow the money….The oil, nuclear and automobile industries and other big corporations—who care first and foremost about their bottom lines—fund our politicians’ electoral campaigns. And they get what they pay for: leaders who ignore the rest of us and our planet.

And so it will continue unless we revive the spirit of 1970, and start marching again for the survival of mother earth. For a start, let’s march to close down San Onofre before an earthquake, tsunami or human error blows deadly radiation our way. And while we’re at it, let’s hold politicians’ feet to the fire. If they can’t or won’t take the action needed to save our planet, they don’t deserve our vote. Let’s march for what we believe in, but let’s vote that way as well.

Re-envisioning Earth Day means getting ourselves out of the box of the corporate controlled two-party system. Which is why I am a proud member of the Green Party. We stand for publicly funded elections, and environmental sanity. And we take no corporate donors. We intend to put citizens back in control and protect our country, our children and the earth.

I know, I know, you say that is all well and good. But the Green Party doesn’t stand a chance. Yet if we don’t dream big and fight for what we believe in, the earth itself doesn’t stand a chance. If the people in Egypt could rise up and overthrow a vicious dictator, certainly we can show the same courage and determination in saving the planet.

We have no time to lose.

(Check out the Green Party booth at the Earth Day fair at Balboa Park on April 17).

Ann Menasche is a member of the County Counsel of the Green Party of San Diego County and a long-time activist in peace, social justice, and LGBT movements. She ran for California Secretary of State in 2010, receiving three percent of the vote.