We continue to shape life on Earth, and threaten our survival, in unexpected ways.
This year’s Earth Day, April 22, arrives at a sobering moment in human history. The world is warming faster than ever. The oceans are rising. Thousands of migrants are fleeing environmental disasters. Taxpayers are paying billions to rebuild communities after climate-linked wildfires and hurricanes destroyed them. The Trump administration is unraveling policies designed to protect our health and environment at a stunning pace. And global emissions keep rising.
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At the same time, new voices are helping us see and understand the urgency of the crisis before us, focusing us on what we need to do (get off fossil fuels, for one). A fresh wave of young environmental activists are taking to the streets to strike for a safe climate. From classrooms to courtrooms to Congress members pushing the Green New Deal, an ambitious new suite of tactics are being deployed to defend the environment.
This Earth Day, it’s worth taking stock of what we’ve learned about the spinning world we inhabit and how we’re responding to crises at hand. In keeping with the Vox tradition started by former Vox writers Brad Plumer and Joseph Stromberg, here are seven of the coolest, most intriguing, and most alarming things we’ve learned about the Earth since the last Earth Day.
Many people under the age of 18 right now may be around to see the end of the century. And a growing number of them are not pleased with the climate they’re inheriting. Our current trajectory puts the planet on course to warm by 4 degrees Celsius by 2100, creating a world that will be devastated by disasters, droughts, disease, and food shortages.
In March of this year, students in more than 120 countries went on strike from school to demand action on climate change. These climate strikes are part of a youth-led climate activism movement, with another global strike planned for May 24. Here’s Irene Kananura of Kampala, Uganda who was striking this past Friday in the heat:
I can bare the hot sunshine on a roadside every friday as i strike to fight for my future. climate change is real, we need action NOW. @GretaThunberg@Fridays4future@Fridays4FutureUpic.twitter.com/COCeyPapIz
The #FridaysForFuture strike movement began when Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old from Sweden, began skipping school and picketing outside the Swedish parliament to protest her government’s inaction on climate change in August.
She has since become something of a global ambassador for youth anxieties about climate change, and has pressured European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to commit 1 trillion Euros to fight climate change. “Our house is on fire,” she said in a January speech at Davos. “I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.” She and other young people show no signs of letting up the pressure.
Whales washing ashore filled with plastic have become distressingly familiar sign of the immense amount of plastic we’ve allowed to wash into the ocean. A pregnant sperm whale was found with 49 pounds of plastic in her stomach along the coast of Sardinia, Italy earlier this month. In March, a Cuvier’s beaked whale was found vomiting blood off the coast of the Philippines. It died a few hours later, and 88 pounds of plastic waste were discovered in its stomach.
