EARTH DAY…  Every day is Earth Day for all of us who want to see our planet and the people who live on it move toward good health. When I go out with my camera to look for pictures for my BLOG, I am awed by the beauty of the earth.  When I look closely at a tree or at a whole forest of trees on a mountainside, I am looking for signs of health for the planet.  Every tree and every other living thing represents in one way or another an effect each of us has on the living Earth. I have posted pictures on the BLOG of a particularly beautiful Rainbow Eucalyptus growing behind the Museum of Photographic Arts, and every time I pass by this tree and other trees living with us in San Diego, I am saddened to see the scars on bark of many trees where thoughtless persons have carved initials. I always wonder why. 

Today in Washington, D.C., and in many other cities around the world we are celebrating life, and we are affirming the importance of the science that addresses the health of the Earth. President Trump’s administration is actively taking apart programs that were established to limit the damage we are doing to the earth.  

The earth’s population in the year that I was born was around 2 billion.  Now the population is more than 7 billion.  The Earth population will probably reach 8 billion by 2025. President Trump has assured coal miners that they will have no limits placed on their mining activities.  He has removed the limits on installing pipe lines to transport petroleum across American land. He denies that climate change is happening because of business activities, and he is unwilling to put limitations on companies if those limitations cut back on production. 

A dictionary definition of science: Science is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experimenting. World population has grown from 2 billion to 7.4 billion in the eight decades of my life. I am not a scientist, but my experience of being alive and alert on the Earth for those eight decades would make me seem silly if I thought that the changes I have seen in the natural world in my lifetime have not changed my environment. I have lived in San Diego for 30 years, and I can see all around me signs of change in the time that I have lived here.

Denying climate change is silly.  Doing nothing to address the problems that are inevitable is also silly. We must look to science for answers to the problems brought on by climate change, and when scientists give us proof that change is necessary, we must not ignore what we are being told.  We must change whatever we can change in order to make sure the world we are making for ourselves and for future generations will be a healthy place.