To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day: Earth Day Week

Text by: Christine Siebert

This week is Earth Day Week, Earth Week, an extension of Earth Day celebrating its 50th anniversary. A 100% digital event, an online conference in which researchers, environmental activists, businesses and citizens all over the world participate. A video conference is the ideal event in these times of Covid-19, when part of the inhabitants of the planet are confined.

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When the organizers of Earth Day Week launched their online conference, they did not think they were so in tune with the global situation. Originally they had opted for a virtual conference to prevent the speakers from traveling by plane and thus contribute to the destruction of the climate while the aim of the conference is to save it.

This conference therefore makes it possible to be at home and to listen to eminent researchers such as the economist Jeffrey Sachs, who speaks from the United States on the parallels between the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change: "  Change climate is an exponential process, the world economy doubles approximately every 20 years, but the planet, the planetary resources, they do not double. However, the exploitation and consumption of fossil fuels and human pressure on the planet are increasing at a rapid rate, and consequently greenhouse gas emissions are also increasing. The parallel with the Covid-19 is this growth at full speed! The epidemic also follows a geometric process . "

Over the days dozens of personalities have taken the floor or are going to speak during this online conference.

The objective of Earth Day Week: to highlight solutions for the climate

The conference covers different themes: finance, circular economy, agriculture, food ... David Olsson, one of the initiators, underlines how important it is that everyone acts in the same direction, researchers, citizens , business leaders: “  Our objective is really to connect and develop the climate movement. There is a very interesting mix of very different people in this conference. There are companies, people from the business world, who offer very advanced solutions and there are also people who are very militant. We have to come together and talk together to find solutions. All in the same boat, for David Olsson, it's the only way to finally move forward.

In fifty years of actions for the environment, the health of the planet has deteriorated

Some people have been sounding the alarm for a while: the first Earth Day took place 50 years ago. The movement was born in the United States and has since become global. But the planet is getting worse and worse. Nevertheless, Earth Day Network spokesperson Nick Nuttall says that nothing is lost and that the Covid-19 crisis reveals just how much we can do: "  The speakers at this conference underlined the one after another that we are investing thousands of billions of dollars to fight the coronavirus. But an even worse crisis awaits us, that of climate change. The sums that we must spend per year to green and decarbonize the world economy correspond to 1 or 2% of world GDP. It is a tiny sum compared to what we probably have to spend if climate change becomes as catastrophic as scientists predict. So we are sounding the alarm. We ask the question: do you really want to wait until the climate crisis hits us so hard that we have to bankrupt the global economy just to be able to survive? Or will the world community finally wake up and say: we can invest now and by doing so we will have cleaner air, smarter businesses, better agriculture and more green and dignified jobs. But I would also like to emphasize that we can avoid this climate crisis if we have the will to do so. It's not that hard. We have the money, we just have to see the sums that we are currently investing, we have the technologies that have been developed since the first day of the earth in 1970. The governments only have to use this fully which is available to them! "

Earth Day Week, Earth Week, ends this Saturday, April 25. On the program during this final sprint: local solutions and a “Climate hackaton”, these are mini-cats , multiple groups of virtual lyrics that exchange ideas to advance the preservation of the environment, so that humans can take awareness of the fact that it is part of nature and that if it ransacks and exploits it excessively, it will also suffer.

► Follow the conference online

► The Climate hackaton

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