Earth Day Reading

On this the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, Ambassador Susan E. Rice, U.S. Representative to the United Nations, commemorated the milestone with a short speech. Two hundred and twenty three words, to be exact. Which lent further credibility to the administration’s efforts at reducing carbon emissions.

The ambassador recommended we get a copy of Rachel Carlson’s Silent Spring and re-read it again in case we had not done so in commemoration of today’s momentous occasion already.

Nobody asked me, but if I were to give a short and momentous speech commemorating this portentous day, I would propose instead the preface to the late Father Richard Neuhaus’ In Defense of People: Ecology and the Seduction of Radicalism. It’s a man’s eye view of the very first-ever Earth Day celebration in the Earth Day Capital of the World. It’s only 17 pages and by reading it silently you don’t have to emit excess carbon dioxide either. I plan to re-read it again next year if I am still here.

View online at: https://c-fam.org/turtle_bay/earth-day-reading/

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