Tomorrow is the 54th Earth Day celebration, created in 1970, which ushered in the modern environmental movement. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, thousands of people would descend on the day upon Washington DC to call for changes that can save our planet. Today, we are living in a world which has drastically changed during my lifetime.
2023 was the warmest year on record, surpassing 2016, which was the previous record holder. Last year, temperatures rose 1.18° Celsius/2.12° Fahrenheit. The ten warmest years have all occurred in the past decade 2014 – 2023. I have seen the effects in the Arctic with my own eyes and my greater call, beyond what I contribute at Eighth Day, is to educate people about the warming Arctic I have experienced in ten trips since 2010. I will share with you some photos taken on my most recent trip during this teaching.
I read The Washington Post daily, and in the past week they have had articles about the H5N1 Avian flu and widespread coral bleaching, which has occurred in oceans around the globe. The “bird flu” has spread from wild bird populations to domestic birds. But more recently, H5N1 has spread from birds to mammals such as seals, bears, foxes, otters, sea lions in Peru and farmed minks in Spain. Millions of animals had to be destroyed. As humans continue to pollute and abuse the only planet we have, these types of events will continue to occur. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, H5N1 could “spillover” to humans. So far, only a couple of cases have happened to people who work closely with animals.