It’s Earth Day! Let’s Celebrate By Dreaming of the Green Utopia to Come

Good news – today is Earth Day! That means the environmental movement – credited with such major successes as the spread of malaria across the Third World thanks to pesticide bans, preventing impoverished countries from developing, and driving manufacturing jobs from Western nations to massively polluting countries such as China – is celebrating it’s 45th birthday today.

Like most Californian hippies reaching middle age, the environmental movement has decided to kick back and take it a little bit easy this year, marking the day with a range of fun activities wherever you are.  Don’t worry, the food is sure to be vegan, organic and sourced from the local farmers market, so no need to knit your own muesli. Phew!

If you happen to be in Kolkata, India, you can meet like minded people to learn why books, far from being the fonts of knowledge that most people assume them to be, are actually waste in need of recycling.

In Rwanda, 70 percent of the population still have to trek to the nearest river or pool to collect their daily water requirements. But let’s ignore that niggling fact and join the national Conference on Green Cities being planned by the Rwanda Environmental Conservation Organisation.

Last week marked a year since 200 Nigerian school girls were kidnapped by jihadists from Boko Haram. More than 1 million people have fled the country, fearful that the government is unable to defend them against the Islamic militants as they sweep through the country. But never mind, if you happen to be in downtown Lagos, Earth Day invites you to be a “Defender of the Universe”! All you need to do is be willing to find ways in which to reduce your carbon emissions, at home and in school.

Of course, if you happen to be one of the millions of Westerners having to go to work today in order to pay extortionate energy bills to line the pockets of renewable energy barons, you’ll have to make do with celebrating at home. No matter, this can be easily done by turning all the lights off, starting a fire in the middle of your living room to huddle around and dreaming of the green utopia to come.

Namaste!