Earth Day 2019

Mother Earth, the giver and sustainer of life, can only bear so much abuse. The planet has been poisoned, deforested, mined, burned, and has had many of her beautiful species killed en masse in a wave of “biological annihilation”. Sadly, humans are the cause.

Our myopic greed and disrespect for Planet Earth are causing a loss of wildlife that has placed us in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, or Holocene Extinction, in what is now referred to as the Anthropocene Epoch. The last time Earth saw a rate of extinction at the current level was the End-Cretaceous extinction 66 million years ago when 76% of all species were lost, including the dinosaurs. Scientists estimate we are now losing species up to 10,000 times the background (normal expected) rate, with dozens of species going extinct every day.

We must work together to protect endangered and threatened species – including elephants, bees, coral reefs, leopards, tigers, sea turtles, the vaquita, frogs, rhinos, the great apes, the pangolin, and whales – to mention just a few. All living beings play a unique and important role in the complex web of life. The accelerating loss of biodiversity along with rapid climate change presents the greatest challenge humans have ever faced.

Overpopulation and overconsumption among humans have placed an unsustainable burden on Earth’s natural resources. Human-caused climate change, deforestation and associated habitat loss, animal agriculture, pollution and pesticides, along with poaching and the trafficking of animals threaten to make this planet uninhabitable before the end of the century according to many scientists.

If we do not take immediate and far-reaching action to address this impending calamity, we may become the first known species to document its own extinction. And if so, we will take the vast majority of species alive today with us.

Let us come together in a spirit of love and cooperation to save this beautiful planet and all its wondrous inhabitants.

For suggestions on what you can do to help visit: www.earthday.org