'The New Mexican' celebrates Earth Day with debut of environment newsletter
There's been 4.5 billion years of Earth. But there's only been a day to celebrate it for 55 years.
Welcome to the first edition of 'Earth, Wind and Fire,' The Santa Fe New Mexican's weekly environment newsletter. Today marks the 55th anniversary of Earth Day, which was proposed by Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson in the wake of a devastating oil spill in Santa Barbara, Calif.
Twenty million Americans participated in Earth Day at the time. Santa Feans were aware and concerned; responses to a 1970 survey found that 80% of City Different residents were worried about pollution in general, although just a little over half felt Santa Fe or their children were particularly impacted.
In 1971, Leah Harvey Junior High students urging stronger laws to curb pollution had a grim message: 'See you 25 years from now wearing a gas mask.'
The gas masks are still in the closet. This year's Earth Day falls after the death of Pope Francis, who in 2015 published the encyclical letter Laudato Si', which urged international action to protect our "common home," Earth.
Although some environmental advocates paint a grim picture on Earth Day 2025, hope for a new generation remains.
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(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) If people stopped having babies, how long would it be before humans were all gone? – Jeffrey Very few people live beyond a century. So, if no one had babies anymore, there would probably be no humans left on Earth within 100 years. But first, the population would shrink as older folks died and no one was being born. Even if all births were to suddenly cease, this decline would start slowly. Eventually there would not be enough young people coming of age to do essential work, causing societies throughout the world to quickly fall apart. Some of these breakdowns would be in humanity's ability to produce food, provide health care and do everything else we all rely on. Food would become scarce even though there would be fewer people to feed. 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That's a long time, but like all animals on Earth we are at risk of becoming extinct. Consider what happened to the Neanderthals, a close relative of Homo sapiens. They first appeared at least 400,000 years ago. Our modern human ancestors overlapped for a while with the Neanderthals, who gradually declined to become extinct about 40,000 years ago. Some scientists have found evidence that modern humans were more successful at reproducing our numbers than the Neanderthal people. This occurred when Homo sapiens became more successful at providing food for their families and also having more babies than the Neanderthals. If humans were to go extinct, it could open up opportunities for other animals to flourish on Earth. On the other hand, it would be sad for humans to go away because we would lose all of the great achievements people have made, including in the arts and science. In my view, we need to take certain steps to ensure that we have a long future on our own planet. These include controlling climate change and avoiding wars. Also, we need to appreciate the fact that having a wide array of animals and plants makes the planet healthy for all creatures, including our own species. Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you'd like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@ Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live. And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you're wondering, too. We won't be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.
