EARTH DAY..22 APRIL - A Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,
 
We put aside this day each year to officially recognize and appreciate our Planet and to honour the sacred elements of Air, Water,

Earth and Fire.

Some estimate that North Americans alone need five planets, the size of our earth , to sustain their continued and present rate of green

house gas emissions. This is very sad and alarming news.

Our governments have an important role to play in solving this problem. Unfortunately,however,it is governments that have allowed and encouraged activities that increase emissions and brought us to a place of crisis. Our governments are supposed to be accountable for their actions, to regulate and make decisions that protect public interest, the environment.

Human health and survival depends on a healthy environment.

Yet, today's governments are unduly influenced and controlled in too many ways by industry and corporations with their promises of investments,development,technological solutions and globalized trade.

I have yet to see their names printed on ballots at the voting centres, yet their impact and corporate power are prominent and usually prevail in so many controversial decisions,regarding Nature and Earth. This leaves me to conclude, that although not democratically elected, they are the ones effectively in control.They are the ones that control the decision-makers.

With the compliments of our government, federal and provincial environmental assessment laws, originally put in place, "to protect" our waters and environment, have been gutted and stripped, so as to not hinder the progress of Industry. How often are development proposal approvals denied? Provincial regulations receive little or no enforcement in matters that could impede economic development

profit and "economic growth".

These are the workings of corporate-first politics. Is it any wonder,that our planet is in trouble?. 

Our home,planet earth, does not deserve the disrespectful,unethical exploitation that it is experiencing from the industries and corporations in their relentless pursuit of profit. Our earth does not deserve governments, who wilfully abandon responsibilities to protect, for the primary benefit and domination of industry.

Granted the planet, environment, water and air pollution issues and the associated health risks are all talked about, but, always seem to come in second best,and in the majority of the final decisions, are the losers. 

Why do we recognize only "one day each year" as Earth Day?  Shouldn't Earth Day be "every day"? After all, we do not have five other planets to depend on. Earth is our one and only home. "There's no place else to go" 

But I also know and realize there are a great many North Americans fighting very hard to preserve and save our planet from the ravages of industry and its continued plundering of the Earth's resources, realizing that the advertised concepts of "sustainable progress and development," so often end up as economic disasters. Disasters that we,as taxpayers, and nature, end up paying for.

The lessons of history are there to remind us all,about Corporate "greed".

In support of this Earth Day and every day from now on, let us all begin by treating and appreciating our earth with the deserving respect of its creation and be thankful for how it sustains human life. 

Let us continue to support these values by proclaiming "The Truth". The crisis is human. Man is the cause and the victim. We are destroying what we need to survive. Governments must be compelled, by us, to live up to their responsibilities.

Economy is not the bottom line. The survival of humans through the protection of earth is. 

The burden of responsibility for the survival of future generations and this Earth,is an honourable and moral commitment.

                                        

 John Fefchak.

 Virden,Man.

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Please also read "Born of the Stump."