Earth needs our help - what can we do?

Earth Day celebrated its 40th anniversary on April 22.  Horticulture professor Deborah Flower, who gave a presentation on Earth Day at the ARC College Hour, recently sat down with the Current's managing editor, Karen Thomas, to discuss some vital issues regarding the conservation of planet Earth.

Q:  Do you think Earth Day has made a difference for the health of the planet since its inception in 1970?

A: Ultimately, I do think Earth Day has made a difference in our awareness of the health of the earth.  Unfortunately, I think we still put money and technological advancement first without considering the effect those priorities have on health of the earth.  Jennifer Neale, Natural Resources professor, has a bumper sticker on her door that reads:  "Growing the economy is shrinking the ecosystem".  I think that is very true.  I remember when packaging got bigger and I knew it would be a natural resource and garbage disaster.  I think that was over 30 years ago.  Maybe it was done to discourage shoplifting and tainting of products (do you remember the Tylenol problem?) but natural resources have been sacrificed, it created pollution, and has used up space as landfills to dispose of it.

Q: It is obvious that humanity should be the caretakers of Earth, but we have done a poor job. "We did not inherit the Earth from our parents; it was loaned to us by our children" (Kenyan proverb). In the last 40 years have we become better custodians?

A: I think we are about as good at being earth custodians as we were in 1970, which was not very good, but now there are almost twice as many of us that impact the earth. We've reduced air and water pollution and the human toxicity of pesticides we use, but we have created more plastics that don't get recycled, more drugs that exit our body and remain in our water supply, and more roads, houses, cars, etc. When people have children, usually their first priority is the safety and health of those children, regardless of how much waste and pollution it creates.  Many choose to drive a large SUV for safety of their family, not a Prius for health of our earth.  Children are our excuse to be wasteful, even though they will be the ones suffering from the result.

Q: If you could encourage younger people to do one thing that would help the Earth, what would that be?

A: I would encourage them to turn off computers, televisions, and electronic games instead of using stand-by or sleep mode when they are done with them. Leaving them on uses energy and generates heat, which is cooled by air conditioning.  All of that takes power.  Power plants use large quantities of natural resources, create pollution and do it where few of us are aware, so we are blind to the impact.  The wars I am aware of in my lifetime have been mostly about access to and possession of natural resources.  If we use less, maybe we'll fight less.

Q: I personally believe it's too late to change the mindset of our parents' generation, so concentrating on the next generation is the only way to lasting change.  How do you feel about the awareness of youth in the present day? Are they more observant and concerned than we were in our youth?

A: My parents are more aware of pollution than most of my students of all ages.  I think I see fear in the faces of young students who are aware of pollution.  My sons, who are in their 20s, did not want to see Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" because they do not want to know how bad things are.  We need a message for our youth that is positive, not frightening or depressing.

Q: Back in the ‘80s there was a saying "stupid people shouldn't breed". Now in the 2000s that saying has changed to "eat the stupid" (since they didn't stop breeding after all).  How do you think over-population will affect the Earth and humanity in 10-20 years?  In the movie "Soilent Green" starring Charleton Heston, the only food people had was made from human corpses.

A: Over population is a huge problem.  I am optimistic it will take care of itself.  Biological systems naturally reach a limit of some sort - disease, lack of food, lack of water.  I think the human population will hit more than one limit...maybe lack of food in one place, disease in another, lack of natural resources elsewhere.  I think things will occur we cannot even imagine.  It won't be pretty or selective.  I also think the younger generation, at least in this country, may not reproduce at the same rate as the past.  Life is hard and having children makes it harder for most of us, so I think many of them may opt out.  Maybe environmental pollution will render them sterile!