Earth Day was last Monday (22) and we here in the Cayman Islands had the whole day to celebrate it as it was a National Holiday.

No. Our government did not give us all the day off because it was Earth Day. It was the Monday after Easter.

However, did you get excited and told your friends and family it was Earth Day so lets do something to save our planet.I expect there were some of you who did do just that but I doubt you were in the majority. Earth Day isn’t as important to some of us as, say St Patrick’s Day, where we can drink beer that has changed in colour to green, amongst many other entertaining useless feats.

Are we, therefor, as passionate about restoring and preserving the planet’s health and commemorate Earth Day?

Earth Day isn’t something new and brought about by the frightening aspects of climate change. That has made millions of us worried about our Earth, all except our politicians who will only adopt it if it shows some merit is gaining points for them.

Earth Day was first recognized way back in 1970. It started in the USA, which may surprise US President Donald Trump, who believes, because he always knows best, that climate change is one big hoax. Incredible really seeing that the USA is one of the worst polluters and heavily responsible for what is happening.

Earth Day Network President Kathleen Rogers is quoted as saying, “We began to see a giant wave of environmental damage [that] accelerated in the 1960s. Those changes included rivers literally catching on fire because boats would discharge oil and gas into the harbors and industrial facilities built along harbors and waterways were processing fuel. Around the late 1960s, chemical plants were dumping into our waters. We began to see enormous numbers of birth defects, as well as a decline in our species, including the bald eagle, which was reduced to very small numbers.”

The situation had gotten out of hand, Rogers said, and drastic improvements were needed.

Then, in January 1969, an oil spill from an offshore platform gushed over 3 million gallons of oil into the Santa Barbara Channel.

It formed a 35-mile-long oil slick along Southern California’s coast, coating beaches in oil and slaughtering thousands of sea mammals, birds and fish, the Los Angeles Times reported. It was the largest oil spill off the U.S. coast at the time.

“People were appalled by the lack of immediate response and the inability to respond,” Rogers said. “It created a wave of interest.”

Demonstrations took place, and Earth Day arose out of that pollution.

Although that was a wake up call then there are still many people to wake up now. Unfortunately all those people who are still executing the pollution and/or have the power to do something, are laying down on their comfortable beds, snoring their stupid heads off. They don’t care.

It can be put off for another day, a year, years….. Poof! Bang! Wallop! Silence. The Earth is dead.

SOURCE MATERIAL FROM: https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/how-earth-day-grew-to-empower-1-billion-people-worldwide-to-preserve-our-planets-health/70004711