Earth Day is a Farce

On Thursday, April 22, don't look for me at any Earth Day activities. I won't be picking up trash, holding hands with my green friends, or shaking hands with politicians. Earth Day was brought to you by Exxon. The same multinationals who brought us global warming and now deny it are busy copyrighting the Earth Day logo so they can use it next to their company's name at the end of a wholesome PBS special, which they sponsor as a tax write-off while chucking filth into the ocean.

The old, tired truth that no one wants to face is that the earth is dying, and that all of us fit into the ugly picture somewhere. Earth Day's corporate parade of feel-good-advertising campaigns and recycling jingles sounds nice, but once you add nuclear waste and oil spills into the mix, everyone packs up their Earth Day picnic, grabs the latest Wall Street Journal and scurries back to the boardroom to decide which city is poor enough to store toxins in exchange for a subsidy.

Do these Earth Day sponsors have the slightest idea how to take on the bigger problems? Does our generation deserve to be handed a radioactive planet? If you're in the mood for a little finger pointing, a little lawless revenge, I'll tell you where to start. At the end of the next do-gooder environmental special, make a list of the sponsors. Start at the top and work your way down. Those low-profile schmucks that take shelter behind glossy corporate logos are as good a place as any to direct your outrage.

But there's no time for revenge, and besides, all of our fingerprints are somewhere on this smoking gun. And while there's no excuse for Earth Day phoniness, there's also no excuse for apathy. If only the word change wasn't copyrighted, because that's what we really need. Something substantial. Something that doesn't smell like the exhaust fumes of business-as-usual. All of us have to find a way to do something. Not because it's Earth Day, but because it's the right thing to do - every day of the year.