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Earth Day Canada launches an awareness program each year leading up to April 22.
The campaign this year is focused on eco anxiety, a mental illness that continues to impact more people. It’s a fear of environmental damage or ecological disaster.
In a 2020 survey of child psychiatrists in England, more than half — 57 per cent — report seeing children and young people who are distressed about the climate crisis and state of the environment.
Earth Day Canada encourages everyone to take collective action to reduce the negative effects on the environment and make positive changes.
All throughout Niagara this Week’s seven editions next week, we’ll have multiple stories aimed at addressing the environment and climate concerns. From impact stories that look at how these issues affect people’s lives to explainers and opinion pieces, there will be plenty to read in both the print edition and on our website NiagaraThisWeek.com.
Niagara this WeekReporters have reported on environmental issues for many years and will continue to report on them as our communities adapt to new realities.
In recent years, flooding has increased in residential areas as well as along the shores Lake Erie and Ontario. We’ve also seen municipalities try to adjust to the economic realities of climate change.
While mainstream media has justifiably been criticized for failing to treat the climate crisis like the important story it is — in many ways it is story that matters more than any and has been for years — we’re only human. It’s difficult to keep the issue in the forefront, no matter how important it is. This is especially true when there are other stories competing for our attention.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a major concern in recent years. This is an emergency of extreme urgency that required the attention of policy-makers and our brightest minds.
Oddly enough this global pandemic emergency — for a short time anyway — alleviated some of the effects contributing to the climate emergency as widespread lockdowns put a noticeable pause on global emissions. Unfortunately, this was a temporary solution that no one considered sustainable.
Perhaps the pandemic did teach us something that could be applied to climate changes.
The power of collective action is the first. In what seemed like a blink of the eye, we had the genetic sequence of this coronavirus mapped and before the end of the pandemic’s first year we began deploying miraculous life-saving vaccines.
And even before that, we did our best to overcome our fear of the unknown and began to take the steps needed to slow down the rate of the virus’ spread until those vaccines could be widely distributed. We took practical measures and made sacrifices to protect ourselves as well as those around us.
Our response was far from perfect in its execution — as evident in the horrific toll paid by residents of our long-term care homes — but it showed where we did work together we can overcome the challenges that face us.
We will need more of it going forward.
Many people have used the global pandemic to show what the global climate emergency will throw at us. It will disrupt our lives and most severely affect the most vulnerable.
But despair is not the answer, collective action is. Earth Day reminds us that we need to take care our planet. It’s a big job, but one we can take on if we get our act together.
We welcome your questions. Email our trust committee at [email protected].
Melinda Cheevers serves as the managing editor of Niagara this Week. You can reach her at [email protected].
