Fifty Five Earth Days Later
2025 marks the fifty fifth Earth Day. The local chapter of the Citizen’s Climate Lobby and our NAOMI friends invite you to celebrate another Beloved Community Earth Day in Wausau at Westview Terrace Park (1501 Bissell St) at 10 AM on Saturday, April 26th.
Wisconsin and Earth Day go back a long way together. Truth be told, without Wisconsin Earth Day might not even exist. Horrified by a disastrous oil spill off the coast of California in 1969, our own Senator Gaylord Nelson conceived and set in motion the gears that made Earth Day 1970 a phenomenon to be reckoned with. Twenty million Americans marched proudly in their streets and parks that first year to protest the piecemeal destruction of the beautiful, life nurturing planet we had so recently seen from space for the very first time. We could finally see how finite Earth was floating in the emptiness of space. We also saw how small and fragile it was. Suddenly, we knew without a doubt how much our lives depended on it. We also understood we needed to protect this little lifeboat of ours drifting in the dark vacuum between the stars.
Thank that first Earth Day for the EPA, the Clean Air Act, Water Quality Act and Endangered Species Act. It was a pretty heady time for the environmentalists of the early ’70s. But times change, and in today’s angry and divided political climate these policies, even the EPA itself, are being gutted day after day and turned inside out in the name of industrial profits. We believe we must stand up for our planet.
Today we also we also find ourselves a people divided against ourselves. Racism has slithered out into the open again. LGBTQ people are reviled, and their reality denied. Refugees, whose labor our economy depends on, live in fear of deportation. Our Earth Day is a celebration of our planet, of course, but it is also a heartfelt celebration of our rich, human diversity.
Each Earth Day we plant a small orchard of twenty fruit trees for all to enjoy in a city park. We bring twenty teams together, made up of a wide variety of people, cultures and belief systems to do the work in the spirit of a caring community. After the trees are planted, we close with an Indigenous led, ceremonial Talking Circle where all are encouraged to speak from their heart. The event is free, though we gratefully encourage donations to help buy next year’s Earth Day trees. We sincerely hope you will join us.