EARTH’S DAY 40th ANNIVERSARY

EARTH DAY 2010 PROMOTES GREEN LIVING
ENVIRONMENTALISTS SEE STEPS FORWARD

NEW YORK (EFE) - Today, the United States and many other countries observe Earth Day, a day for celebrating our planet. And it is also a day intended to raise awareness about a wide range of environmental issues and problems that still need to be dealt with, and to inspire people to take personal action to address them. The first Earth Day celebration took place in 1970. Earth Day founder, the late Senator Gaylord Nelson said that “the objective was to get a nationwide demonstration of concern for the environment so large that it would shake the political arena. It was a gamble, but it worked. An estimated 20 million people participated in peaceful demonstrations all across the country.” As a direct result of the success of that first Earth Day, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was established in 1970, and later that year the Clean Air Act was enacted. Then in 1970, the Clean Water Act became law, followed three years later by the Endangered Species Act. “We have made remarkable progress,” said President Barack Obama in a video statement released on April 13th. “Today, our air and water are cleaner, pollution has been greatly reduced, and Americans everywhere are living in a healthier environment.”

Over time, profound changes have both contributed to a green culture and made the cleanup job bigger, said Kathleen Rogers, president of Earth Day Network, a nonprofit group that promotes environmentalism and organizes activities worldwide each year on April 22. This year, some 1.5 billion people from 90 countries are expected to participate in Earth Day activities. Rogers said they will have to demand change from public officials and private businesses. Meanwhile, Rogers said, the rise of computers has made access to information and communication easier, but as people spend more time online they become less in touch with the outdoors and community activism.


The consumism ideology pollutes our heart and we pollute the environment. We are children of God, our Divine Father, and must respect and protect Nature, our Divine Mother Earth. So we must stop creating disturbances in the home provided by our Divine Parents to mantain all living beings.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

The Bhagavata Maha Purana (1.2.10) gives the mission statement for human life, “Humans should function in the material realm only for maintaining existence, not for seeking enjoyment. For they will find real happiness only in spiritual realization and in nothing else.” What is this spiritual realization? And what has it got to do with saving the ecology? Spiritual realization reveals to us that we are all children of God with nature as our mother, as mentioned in the Bhagavad-gita (14.4). ... And just as the children can live happily when they follow their parents, we too can flourish if we live in harmony with nature and God, the sustainer of nature.

Caitanya Caran das (BE E&TC)
“Green Earth Needs Spiritual Humans”
“The Spiritual Scientist” - Vol. 4 Issue 3.
Bhaktivedanta Academy for Culture and Education (BACE), Pune
http://thespiritualscientist.com/