Earth Day Sunrise and Sunset

( – promoted by TheMomCat)

Cross-posted at DailyKos and firefly-dreaming.

I wonder how you feel on this Earth Day. I wonder what you are doing to make everyday Earth Day. I woke up this morning, insignificant speck that I am in a corporate world and considered my own actions.

I watched the sunrise and remembered this day forty years ago with the words I heard this week about Ronald Reagan ringing in my ears “We’ve lost thirty years.”

Because of watching Earth Days on PBS I remembered that on that first Earth Day I went downtown to see a closed Fifth Ave. That Mayor Lindsay closed the street to honor Earth Day and everyone saw a bright a shining future ahead.  

The sun was a late arrival this morning. The early morning view to the west was a beautiful blue.

As I watched and waited from my terrace on the east I had the oddest thought. I wondered where that first plastic wrapper from my first record album would be. Somewhere out there on the right is a long closed Bronx dump that every now and then I drive by. On the way out to City Island I see that man made mountain of garbage. Since I didn’t live in one of those many high rises that burned the garbage in the basement, the plastic wrapper for “Rolling Stones 12X5” is probably still there somewhere. Since that hillside often has fires that just start without anyone helping, perhaps my first wrapper is toxic smoke in the atmosphere.

As I waited for the sun I remembered that the rest of that album did not get thrown out until it was replaced by a CD and there were no more city dumps. Probably the cardboard jacket has decomposed but that vinyl disc that I was once so proud of is probably still sitting in a Virginia dump somewhere.

When the sun broke through I wondered how much plastic and other garbage that never goes away have I added to dumps across the East Coast? Would it be a house, an apartment building, an office building, football stadium or mountain? I have so much to make up for.  

The morning began. Not a spectacular sunrise, yesterday’s was more moving but it was New York’s only fortieth Earth Day sunrise.

Will Fifth Ave. be closed due to flooding on the fiftieth Earth Day or will voices like Denis Hayes rise again above the corporate dominance and finally America will have declared war on global warming? Ten years from now will every day be Earth Day?  

It might have been a perfectly clear sunrise somewhere on this tiny ball that we abuse but here in the Bronx the sun came through so much atmosphere, some natural and some that we made. We are moving slowly but things are looking much brighter in 2010, just not as bright at the future should look. “We’ve lost thirty years.”

Today was a moody Earth Day here, there were blue sky moments, thunder and lightening, just overcast and one short rain. It was a good looking day. The sort of day that promises a good ending.

Today’s short rainstorm.

With sunsets you can never tell what will happen but the late afternoon sun was so promising that I wrote to a friend and promised a sunset diary.

The Hudson River shipping lanes as the sun made a comeback.

Then gone again.

But not for long. there would be an Earth Day sunset.

As the sun set I wondered how much we’ve changed in the past forty years. There have been many good steps about cleaning up our air and water but will we ever go far enough? I wondered what the future will be on a planet where many people just don’t want to know.

One last look at one unique day in New York City.

I guess I don’t have as much to write about earth day as I thought. Or perhaps I’ve written too much. I posted a stupid diary about a big advance that embarrassingly made the rec list. I took a third shot at promoting The Thin Green Line but there are some things that even progressive bloggers don’t want to know. I posted a thank you to some of the people who worked for Earth Day awareness and I even tried a first liveblog on the broadcast of Food Inc. last night. But somewhere along the line I posted a Tip Jar that represents what I think is the answer, more people who do want to know.

I wish there was more that I could do. What have you been doing? Inspire me please, inspire all of us.

Happy Earth Day and CHEERS to afterglow.

By the way A Sense of Wonder is coming on many PBS stations tonight. It is a story about Rachel Carson.

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life last…There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature, the assurance that dawn comes after night and spring after winter.

                                                    —Rachel Carson