“How many people wait with bated breath for Earth Day to arrive in April of each year? Who knows, but taking a wild guess, probably nobody. Earth Day kinda died out along with the fade-out of the counter-culture of the sixties and seventies. Today, they’re all grandparents and Earth Day has dissipated”. Wrote freelance writer and environmental journalist, Robert Hunziker in a recent edition of Dissident Voice. Mr. Hunziker goes onto say, “Imagine what could of / would have been if only global warming had been the issue of the day in 1968. The likely answer is: Major legislation, including a national directive to convert to renewable energy sources ASAP, setting a D-Day for rejection of fossil fuels. Back then, the streets of Washington, D.C. would have been so filled with so much outrage that Congressional members would have required hours to wade through the mass of people to their offices”. His thought-provoking article, prompted Norman B to invite Robert Hunziker onto Life Elsewhere to explain why he believes we should “Ban Earth Day”.

“Greening the Media” a book by Toby Miller and Richard Maxwellexamines important questions such as the media’s complicity in environmental pollution, illustrating how information technology contributes to the global ecological crisis and hot-button issues such as global warming, cellphone safety, and technological waste. Miller and Maxwell like Robert Hunziker are also concerned about what Earth Day means, so they co-authored an article for Psychology Today, titled “The Problem With Earth Day”. Professor Toby Miller is an interdisciplinary social scientist, the author and editor of over 30 books who has published essays in more than 100 journals. He joins the Life Elsewhere conversation to discuss his original and for some, controversial ideas.

As always at Life Elsewhere, we format the incidental music to align with the topics. This week we included music specifically fitting for Earth Day, including: The Yardbirds – The Shape Of Things, Deep Forest – Forest Hymn, Radiohead – Idioteque and Marvin Gaye – Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology). This week’s Hit That Never Was also has an Earth Day reference with Rise by Samantha James.