Environmental clean-up and recycling efforts have been boosted, legislation (domestic and international) has been enacted, and general public awareness about the critical importance of keeping our environment healthy has been fully embedded.

In that time, we have accomplished much for our planet, but not nearly enough. Massive pollution still takes place – especially by corporations, including Shell, BP, and Exxon Mobil, which put profit above all else – and rising global temperatures and sea levels put millions of people at risk of losing their livelihoods, their homes, and their lives.

The United States – the second-largest CO2 contributor in the world – withdrew from the Paris Agreement only two years after its signing. We must take this opportunity to not only look at the progress of the past 50 years, but what still needs to be done in the next 50 years to ensure the safety and survival of our planet.

The World’s Top 10 CO2 Emitters

In the United States, a great deal of legislation was passed which helped set the country on the path toward a healthier environment. The most significant victory in the wake of the first Earth Day was the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency on December 2, 1970.

This agency consolidated research, monitoring, and enforcement of all federal activities involving air, water, and land protection. Under its aegis, protections were enshrined for the country’s air, water, and wetlands; legislation governing toxic, nuclear, and medical waste instituted further safeguards for people and their communities.

The Clean Air Act of 1970, the first legislation passed under the EPA, has had a significant impact on air quality in the United States. From 1980 to 2018, aggregate emissions have dropped 68 percent; the highest rate of change was in lead emissions, which dropped 99 percent, mostly due to regulations removing lead from fuel.

Top 10 most polluted countries 2019 (PM2.5)

Source: IQair

Laws protecting the country’s water, including the Clean Water Act (1972) and Safe Drinking Water Act (1974), prevented further pollution, restored the nation’s waterways, and allowed regulation of public drinking water.

With these acts and many more, the EPA has instituted demonstrable changes for the better. Medical, nuclear, and toxic waste is no longer wantonly disposed; it is now done safely and with proper notification to local communities, preventing its deleterious effects on people.

Contaminated Superfund sites are identified, and significant actions are taken to clean up hazardous materials and other damaging waste, even restoring some of these lands to public use.

A great deal of international action on the environment has taken place in the last 50 years as well. The first significant piece of legislation was the 1989 Montreal Protocol. With the discovery of a hole in the ozone layer (which shields the Earth from the Sun’s radiation) above Antarctica in 1985, the international community knew that it had to come together to repair the damage.

The actions taken with this Protocol have been successful—in 2018, a NASA study showed ozone layer recovery resulting from bans on chlorofluorocarbons and other ozone-destroying chemicals, which were the target of the Montreal Protocol. Instead of expanding by 40 percent by 2013, as scientists estimate would have happened without these measures, the ozone hole is expected to heal completely by 2050.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the main United Nations body tasked with assessing the science on climate change. Its work has been momentous, recognized in 2007 with the Nobel Peace Prize, and has delivered critical materials used in the creation of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the 2015 Paris Agreement (themselves products of the 1994 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change).

The Kyoto Protocol, while flawed, especially considering the exclusion of mandatory goals for developing countries like China and India, who even at the time of the agreement were massive polluters, showed demonstrable results—emissions from “advanced countries” included in the agreement dropped an overall 22.6 percent compared to 1990 levels.

The 2015 Paris Agreement is still in its infancy. Its goals, to keep the increase in global average temperature to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels, limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C in order to reduce the risks and impacts of climate change, and reach peak global emissions quickly in order to rapidly reduce overall emissions, will be measured in decades. With global goals, this is without question a global effort.

However, despite these measures, we are still facing a global environmental crisis. In the United States, despite the protections offered by the Safe Drinking Water Act, many cities still provide unsafe drinking water to its residents—most famously highlighted by the 2014 crisis in Flint, MI, which is still ongoing to this day. The National Priorities List of Superfund sites currently sits at 1,335; only 424 have been removed.

Despite the advancements made under the Kyoto Protocol, global carbon dioxide emissions have only continued to rise since 1990. Forests, which not only purify the Earth’s air and water but provide millions of people with jobs, are being destroyed at an unprecedented rate—18.7 million acres, or 27 soccer fields, every minute.

Sea levels continue to rise; countries such as Indonesia, the Netherlands, and the United States risk losing low-laying cities, while others like Kiribati, the Maldives, and the Marshall Islands risk disappearing under the sea entirely.

Wildfires across the globe have been burning longer and more frequently, ending plant, animal, and human lives.

This fiftieth celebration of Earth Day should serve as a celebration of the work that has been done—our skies, lands, and oceans are significantly cleaner. However, it should also serve as a wake-up call for the work that still needs to be done.

Fires and rising sea levels threaten to destroy entire countries; water scarcity is poised to be the biggest cause of wars around the world. This is a critical moment for our planet—we must take this opportunity to continue our work for a healthier globe before it is too late.

Author: Kimberlee Hurley

The post 50 Years of ‘Earth Day’: Will We Have 100? appeared first on Nepali Sansar.

Citing to plastic waste management as a ‘global crisis’, Earth Day Network (a non-profit organization that conducts the Earth Day every year) informed that the World Earth Day 2018 is focused on ways to end plastic pollution globally.

A wide variety of events have been held across the world commemorating the World Earth Day 2018 with some of them being Green Room Festival 2018 by Japan, Billion Acts of Green by China, No-Plastic by Indian State of Karnataka, #StirCrazy Earth Day by Romania and the UK and Earth Day by the Bay in San Fransisco, among various others.

“There is a growing tidal wave of interest in ending plastic pollution and some countries and governments are already in the vanguard. Earth Day Network believes we can turn that tidal wave into a permanent solution to plastics pollution,” Earth Day Network President Kathleen Rogers said in a statement.

Case of Nepal

Like many other countries, Nepal has been striving for a clean and safe environment.

Towards this goal, the country and its citizens have been coming up with many eco-friendly initiatives including clean up campaigns, waste management programs, among various others.

#PollutionControl : Towards controlling vehicular pollution, the Government of Nepal has called for a ban on old vehicles aging more than 20 years.

#HornFreeWorld : Riding on the success of the horn-ban policy in its capital city Kathmandu, Nepal is also striving for achieving horn-free nation status through a serious implementation of the policy across the nation.

The policy’s success in Kathmandu was also referred to as a real-time example for efficient public-policy collaboration in Nepal. 

“In the entire South Asian region, this is one of the most successful initiatives by the traffic police. This is our pride. Now if you blow the horn, people will look at you just like in a developed country, as if you were uncivilized,” says Sudan Silwal, a senior police officer from Kathmandu Metropolitan Traffic Police (KMTP) department.

#GreenVehicles : Another interesting initiative of Nepal is the pitch for usage of green vehicles or electric vehicles run by alternative energy sources such as electricity, solar or biofuel, among others. The country is looking at a full-fledged transition to the usage of green vehicles or Electric Vehicles (EVs) in the next 10 years.

“With the right policies in place, we can achieve complete transition in 10 years,” says Nepal’s former Finance Secretary Rameshore Khanal, who also opines that Nepal’s transition to EVs will be faster than that of India.

#CleanEnergy : There is a growing trend of adopting clean energy solutions in Nepal. As a country with good water resources, Nepal is already riding high on its hydropower and is also ramping up efforts for full-fledged harnessing of alternative energy solutions like wind, solar, bio-fuel, among others.

#WasteManagement : With wide variety of activities, Nepal has always been effectively for waste management and has also set few classic examples like Dhankuta for effective waste management. The country has always been active in tackling waste management through mega clean-up campaigns for cleaning up tons of debris across all levels.

#CleanAir : Very recently, a Nepal-based private firm in collaboration with the US Embassy in Kathmandu has come up with an app called Safa Hawa for keeping a continuous check on air pollution and ensure clean air and environment to its citizens.

#PlasticFree : Nepal has also been taking various initiatives for a plastic-free environment. In 2011, the Nepali Ministry of Science Technology and Environment came up with the Plastic Bags Control and Regulation Directive prohibiting the import, storage, manufacture, sale and use of plastic bags less than 30 microns.

Likewise, Nepal has taken many such initiatives for safe and clean environment, and there the country also has various organisations working for such eco-friendly initiatives.

Plastic Haunts the Globe!

Research studies show alarming results about plastic pollution, globally.

A 2015 study by a team of environmentalists led by Environmental Engineer at the University of Georgia Jenna Jambeck found an estimated 275 million metric tons of plastic waste in 192 coastal countries as of 2010, with 4.8-12.7 million metric tons of that directly moving into the ocean.

A Washington DC based non-profit media house, in its research, also saw some astonishing results. It was shocked to find that 93 percent of bottled water sampled from nine countries and 94 percent of drinking water in the United States contained chemically-toxic plastic particles with many of those linked to major health diseases.

Action Plan

“Plastic pollution is now an ever-present challenge. We can see plastics floating in our rivers, ocean and lagoons, littering our landscapes and affecting our health and the future of billions of children and youth. We have all contributed to this problem –- mostly unknowingly,” Valeria Merino, Vice-President of Global Earth Day at Earth Day Network, said in a statement.

Speaking about further action plan, Rogers said, “This year, Earth Day Network will mobilize its global network of non-governmental organizations and grassroots groups as well as local elected officials, faith leaders, artists, athletes, students and teachers to build a world of educated consumers, voters and activists of all ages who understand the environmental, climate and health consequences of using plastic.”

Where it Started?

First celebrated in 1970, the World Earth Day emerged at the time when the pollution from industries was still legal and there were hardly any laws for environment protection.

Kickstarting the first World Earth Day celebration on April 22, 1970, the then US Senator Gaylord Nelson took ahead the initiative across the nation, which eventually resulted in the inception of the today’s renowned regulatory body for environment protection, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 

Continuing with the pace, the Earth Day program went on further mobilizing millions across the world for fight against environmental issues on a global platform.

According to the Earth Day Network, around 1 billion people from 192 countries take part in the World Earth Day every year.

Let’s pledge for a plastic-free world! #PlasticFreeWorld

The post #WorldEarthDay2018: Nepal, A Classic Example! appeared first on Nepali Sansar.