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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TuESDAY, ApRIL 23, 2019
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND
Editor
Founded in 1873
JEREMY FELDMAN
Circulation Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN
production Manager
CARL EARL
Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
ANOTHER DAY
ON PLANET EARTH
O
ur differences are well-documented.
Lines drawn along political, phil-
osophical, ethnic and religious
divides give the impression that we’re
all on different teams.
Those sides lead to everything from
small squabbles to horrific rifts. They’re
the defining narratives we use to under-
stand and explain our lives.
But there’s a big, unifying similarity
we all share, and that’s the place we call
home.
The planet Earth, the beautiful and
strange and wondrous cosmic address
that has been the setting for every
moment of recorded human history, save
the few short jaunts into our tiny solar
system neighborhood in the unfathom-
able universe.
Our planet is remarkably unique
among the cosmos, a fact we’ve only
come to understand in the past century.
As inhospitable as places like Death
Valley and Antarctica are to our delicate
human bodies, even they pale to the bru-
tal environs found literally everywhere
else outside our atmosphere.
It’s no wonder many have taken to
calling her Mother Earth.
Environmentalism isn’t a new con-
cept. For centuries of human history we
had a close bond with the planet. Our
agrarian ancestors knew that careful
stewardship was the only way to ensure
it would continue to yield us crops, and
the hunters and gatherers knew that only
biological balance between flora, fauna
NASA
The western hemisphere, as shown in the Blue
Marble photographs released by NASA in 2002.
The collection was the most detailed color
depiction of planet Earth ever compiled.
and humans would sustain us.
But the urbanization of the 19th and
20th centuries saw those connections
broken, as fewer people were needed to
produce their own food and populations
shifted from the country to cities. The
conveniences of modernization took us
out of tune with nature.
This preceded many short-sighted
decisions, and by the end of the 1960s
the U.S. was at a breaking point. Oil
slicks on the Cuyahoga River in indus-
trialized Ohio had caught fire several
times. The bald eagle was on the brink
of extinction in the West and whale pop-
ulations in the world’s oceans were crit-
ically low. An oil spill off the coast of
Santa Barbara that devastated the pris-
tine beaches was a stark reminder of the
true impact of energy production on the
environment.
Closer to home, the misuse of the
Willamette River was turning it into a
toxic discharge, and reckless irrigation
practices on the east side of the state
were draining streams and rivers to the
point of ecological collapse.
The first Earth Day was celebrated
on April 22, 1970, as a way to reengage
with our planet. It was a day for educa-
tion and celebration, to learn about our
home and understand the role we play
on it.
Later in the same year, President
Richard Nixon created the Environ-
mental Protection Agency and signed a
robust update to the Clean Air Act. Both
were met with bipartisan support.
It’s a shame that environmentalism
has become a political wedge issue, con-
sidering it should be a place we can find
substantial middle ground. The environ-
mental movement of the 1960s has bred
a knee jerk anti-development culture,
while President Trump’s administra-
tion has targeted federal climate change
research, ostensibly for short-term eco-
nomic gains. Both narrow views of the
Earth are unbefitting her grandeur.
Most of us are left in the middle. We
certainly care for our planet and ear-
nestly want to see it thrive for our chil-
dren and grandchildren. But we also
know that means finding our place in it.
We want to reengage with our corner
of the planet.
It means spending time outside, away
from the divisive tendencies of our
devices, and learning about the billions
of tiny parts that make up the whole
wide world.
It means planting a garden or going
for a hike, cleaning up litter at a park
or teaching your children about energy
conservation.
It means treating the planet as a
shared resource and not another line to
divide us.