Act for earth: World Environment Day

‘Preaching to the choir” is a fear I have often heard among organizers of whatever stripe, and it is one I have sometimes expressed. But, truth is, members of the choir who may be singing the same tune aren’t necessarily acting to bring about the changes one hopes to see. Preaching to the choir has value. It’s worth asking, for example, “Have all of us who attended Earth Day events on April 22 with noble intentions, acted on those intentions?”

June 5 is World Environment Day. Just 45 days from Earth Day, it is a good occasion to ask the choir how those actions for energy efficiency, or soil restoration, or water detoxification are coming. Have you ridden the I-380 bus and skipped the single-driver commute between Cedar Rapids and Iowa City? Have you contacted our Washington delegation and told them you want more action to address climate change, not less; or your Iowa delegation, and told them you want more action on water and soil quality? If you have the cash, have you bought that induction stove, heat pump, additional insulation, electric car, solar panels? Or how about just door sweeps and weather stripping?

World Environment Day was initiated by the United Nations in 1973 to bring together representatives of the world’s nations in a particular place to address a particular environmental problem: the China meeting on air pollution, the India meeting on plastics pollution, the Angola meeting on illegal wildlife trade and so on. The 2024 meeting in Saudi Arabia this week will focus on restoring degraded soils, weathering drought, and preventing desertification — topics Iowans know a lot about. What those member nations agree to in Saudi Arabia matters but so does what we do on every acre here at home. It’s time to remember those Earth Day intentions and act.

For those not yet in the choir, there is what Brian McLaren calls “dancing with doom”: facing, embracing, and moving with the realities of climate change and inequality that are all around us. McLaren argues that dancing with doom, though it prompts fears deserving of respect and care, is a means to become actively awake, ready to dig into those good intentions.

This World Environment Day reinvigorate Earth Day intentions or initiate new ones. Sing and dance them into being.

Barbara Eckstein is president of the Johnson County United Nations Association and a member of Citizens Climate Lobby.