I’m a day late to officially celebrate Earth Day, but really, shouldn’t every day be Earth Day? We do our best to make that true. Part of our mission at The Conversation is to publish research-based articles by scientific experts on the many aspects of our global climate crisis – including offering ideas on how all of us can be part of the solution.
The first Earth Day was held in the U.S. in 1970 and it is often seen as the birth of the modern environmental movement (although this year marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of Rachel Carson’s bestseller Silent Spring, which introduced many to the concept of how pollution impacts public health).
The environmental movement has always had a political element to it, but like so many other things in our society today, the issue has become severely polarized. As a reporter in Washington in the early 1990s, I covered the lengthy legislative battles to amend the U.S. Clean Air Act that were intended to reduce acid rain. This led to the Canada-U.S. Air Quality Agreement, a transboundary initiative that came about with a Conservative government in Ottawa (Brian Mulroney) and a Republican administration in Washington (George Bush Sr.). It’s hard to imagine something like that happening under similar circumstances these days.
At a time of year when many Canadians are reacquainting themselves with the great outdoors, I’ve assembled some recent Earth Day-themed stories from the global network of The Conversation – as well as a few still-relevant reads from our archives.
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I also wanted to draw your attention to an event next Thursday. Our colleague Jabulani Sikhakhane, editor of The Conversation Africa, will be part of the Global Journalism Innovation Lab's upcoming Spring Speaker Series: Communicating Complexity. You can sign up for this free virtual event here.
Hosted by our research partners at the University of British Columbia, University of Ottawa, Queensland University of Technology, and The Creative School Catalyst at Ryerson University, the series will consider how explanatory journalism can continue to fulfill its essential public role in the 21st century.
Have a great weekend and we’ll be back in your Inbox on Monday.
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