As we welcome the 41st Earth Day it is interesting to look around and take stock of where we are; as going green continues to go mainstream. It is almost impossible not to heed two events that are calling on all human beings around the world to bring about change to our environmental mentality.
The most recent has been the devastating Tsunami that hit Japan and that subsequently caused the explosion at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. And of course the other was the catastrophic BP oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. At this point you might expect that the blame for the events should lay at the feet of big oil and nuclear power companies, after all they build them. And yet the responsibility for allowing toxic energy producers to continue, lies with each of us. Much of the early debates about the environment have centered around the idea of saving the birds, trees and environment, as if humans aren’t a part of it. But what new believers of environmental change are conveying is that what we are talking about is saving the earth so humans can live here.
Solar and other renewable energy sources such as wind and biomass offer a far, far less destructive method for providing the energy we need, and do so in a way that provide air we can breathe; water we can drink and an earth that’s healthy enough to sustain life for all living creatures. In that regards California and other states and cities are implementing attractive and innovative incentive programs to encourage renewable investments. The hope is that this will lead to even healthier and brighter Earth Days in the future.