Earth Day, 44 years on

With the economy still somewhat in the tank, it looks like Earth Day, or Earth Week as it is now called, will take a back seat to more mundane concerns.   The first time people gathered on a mild day in April to voice concerns for the environment, we had a Republican president who signed the legislation to institute the EPA, that scourge of the latter day GOP.   In 1970, there were still good jobs to be had with a high school education and the only mention of China in the news media was to document the Mao Zedong's failed cultural revolution.  Today, the muted celebration of our interdependence with spaceship earth is basically ignored by the media, jobs are in short supply and we are in a new gilded age with the barons of finance telling us to be thankful for the crumbs which fall from their tables.   A new story asserts that 20% of China's rapidly depleting farmland is polluted, which is inspiring the leaders to invest in farms around the world to feed its billion strong population.  This investment is going on sub rosa and we will wake up one morning to find nations which should be able to feed themselves importing food even as their own production flows to China.  Aside from grade school programs celebrating Earth Day, their seems to be precious little going on to deal with the increasing harm we are inflicting on the environment.