{"id":863,"date":"2014-04-22T15:36:02","date_gmt":"2014-04-22T22:36:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/?p=863"},"modified":"2015-03-12T11:18:51","modified_gmt":"2015-03-12T18:18:51","slug":"power-empowerment-and-earthworms-happy-earth-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/2014\/04\/22\/power-empowerment-and-earthworms-happy-earth-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Power, Empowerment, and Earthworms (Happy Earth Day)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a>

Image from absolutebodo.com<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe most common way people give up their power is by thinking they\u00a0don\u2019t have any.\u201d<\/strong>
\n -Alice Walker<\/strong>
\nToday is April 22, 2014, or Earth Day, as some people might realize only\u00a0after looking at their calendars. Founded in the United States, Earth\u00a0Day commemorates what was the start, according to many, of the\u00a0environmental movement in 1970. The Green Cities Campaign attributes\u00a0Earth Day to sparking the creation of the Environmental Protection\u00a0Agency and to leading to the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and\u00a0Endangered Species Acts. Now more than ever, as we continue to trash the\u00a0planet for every last drop of oil and every last dollar we can make, the\u00a0messages of Earth Day desperately call for our attention. And yet, many\u00a0within the environmental movement are developing a bitter desperation\u00a0that reflects the indomitability of capitalism that has infected the\u00a0hearts of so many people who believe there is nothing they can do that\u00a0will help.<\/p>\n

 
\nWhile the principles of Earth Day are still urgent, arguably even more\u00a0so than when it began, the levels of enthusiasm have dropped, making it\u00a0more of a commemoration of awareness than of action. And while awareness\u00a0is crucial to create any kind of change, on its own it makes the Earth\u00a0little more than a charity case at which people throw their money on a\u00a0designated day. It becomes someone else\u2019s problem and \u00a0a way for donators to feel better about their own lifestyles. While many of us who know that the consequences of approving the Keystone XL pipeline will be much more than just \u201can earthworm will be displaced,\u201d as Sarah Palin so condescendingly put it, the opposition is not enough to stop it from being approved in the South. It is necessary\u00a0for us to make personal changes to support the environment,but it is\u00a0even more important to focus our efforts on removing our support from\u00a0the corporations and the governments seeking to profit from these\u00a0endeavors.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

According to Palin, \u201cThat earthworm, it can take one for the team.\u201d But\u00a0it can\u2019t anymore. The earth has been exploited for too long. Capitalism\u00a0has to make room for environmentalism because growth is not profitable\u00a0if it is unsustainable. The sense of helplessness against the\u00a0corporations is too great when people don\u2019t realize that their\u00a0consumerism is contributing to the problem. The awareness spread by\u00a0Earth Day is not comprehensive enough to make people feel like they have\u00a0power in the situation. Taking shorter showers and carpooling is a\u00a0fantastic start, but ultimately, it\u2019s capitalism we have to target if we\u00a0want to create any real change. Change is a process, it cannot be\u00a0accomplished on one day out of the year, and it is important to see\u00a0ourselves as responsible for our own actions. Awareness is great, but real action is what leads to improvement. This Earth Day, let’s remember power belongs to the people,not the energy companies, and it’s up to us to claim it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kristen Sibbald<\/em><\/p>\n

Staff Blogger Scr ’17<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u201cThe most common way people give up their power is by thinking they\u00a0don\u2019t have any.\u201d -Alice Walker Today is April 22, 2014, or Earth Day, as some people might realize only\u00a0after looking at their calendars. Founded in the United States, Earth\u00a0Day commemorates what was the start, according to many, of the\u00a0environmental movement in 1970. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[236,239,33],"tags":[302,303,268],"class_list":["post-863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beyond-the-claremont-bubble","category-culture","category-perspective","tag-earth-day","tag-environmentalism","tag-kristen-sibbald"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2014\/04\/earth-day.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}