Culture Dose | Earth Day Round Up

Our guide on what to read, watch and listen to For Earth Day

Earth day collage poster byRobert Rauschenberg from 1970
Original Earth Day poster by Robert Rauschenberg 1970

As we head towards Earth Day on April 22, it’s interesting to see how its changed since 1970. Climate change wasn’t even a part of the conversation – now everything is interwoven as an assault on our ecosystems. Pollution, population (as in exploding), and wildlife preservation drove the movement.

The U.S. remained bogged down in Viet Nam while the Iron Curtain was virtually impenetrable. Decolonization was underway, but many newly formed countries found themselves trapped between the capitalist West and the Communist East— and the rush for natural resources to exploit exploded.

Fast forward to now – we look at the loss of biodiversity, collapse of ecosystems, and depletion of oceans, in a plastic-encrusted earth. If ever there was a time to pause and jump into activism, it is now. The pandemic offered a view of a more straightforward, less consumptive way of living on the earth.

But “In 2023, we must unite again in partnership for the planet. Businesses, governments, and civil society are equally responsible for taking action against the climate crisis and lighting the spark to accelerate change toward a green, prosperous, and equitable future. We must join together in our fight for the green revolution, and for the health of future generations. The time is now to Invest In Our Planet,” said Kathleen Rogers, President of earthday.org.

Read: Girls Who Green The World –Thirty-Four Rebel Women Out to Save Our Planet

cover of the book

Taking Kathleen Rogers words to heart, we begin in a place we usually do; with girls and women who not only head a good many of the movements, but work tirelessly to make change.

Both biography and guidebook to the contemporary environmental movement, this book is for future and current change-makers. Girls Who Green the World features the stories of 34 revolutionaries upending stasis while reclaiming the planet as a space to thrive.

From the Publisher: Journalist Diana Kapp has crisscrossed this country writing for and about empowered girls, girls who expect to be leaders, founders and inventors. This book takes it a step further. It says to girls: while you’re striving to be CEOs and world leaders, consider solving the biggest challenge of our lifetime, too–because you can do both at the same time, and here are 34 women doing just that.”

Get it here or at your local library.


Watch: The Human Element

“Young people – they care. They know that this is the world that they’re going to grow up in, that they’re going to spend the rest of their lives in. But, I think it’s more idealistic than that. They actually believe that humanity, human species, has no right to destroy and despoil regardless.” –Sir David Attenborough

How glorious and how fragile is our planet? As the human entanglement with the 4 elements — air, earth, water and fire — radically alters this place we call home, can we reevaluate our relationship to the natural world? These are the questions environmental videographer James Balog grapples with. From climate chaos to hope, this compassionate film puts us on the front lines of the change and argues we can, by recognizing we are a part of and not apart from these natural systems, heal them.


Listen: The Jane Goodall Hopecast With Robin Wall Kimmerer

image of jane goodall

When the grandmothers speak, the earth will be healed. (a Hopi saying)

So join Dr. Jane Goodall and Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer (revered author of Braiding Sweetgrass and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation) in a thoughtful conversation about plants – what we can learn about and from them. They share the ways their mothers encouraged their love of nature and journeys through academia. While both are rigorous scientists viewing the world through analytical lenses, they nonetheless embrace the totality of the “ways of knowing,” emphasizing the wisdom offered from indigenous cultures. They focus on the urgent need to reconnect with the natural world through stories. As Robin puts it, “in my own evolution I have gone from scientist to storyteller because it feels like that’s what we need right now.

Listen

-KL Dunn