This year marks the fortieth anniversary of Earth Day, first celebrated on April 22, 1970. Back then, modern society, especially in the so called developed world, was peaking with environmental concern. One of the big issues of the day was the disastrous effects of DDT on bird populations. Global warming was a little known theory and the degradation of the Earths’ ozone layer wasn’t yet imagined.

Some would say we’ve come a long way in the last four decades. DDT and other harmful chemicals have been banned. A global treaty to protect the ozone layer from CFC’s has been in effect since 1987. And, since 1972 nations have gathered under the U.N. umbrella to deal with the preservation of bio-diversity and a climate changing build-up of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. The Kyoto Protocol was one outcome of these gatherings. It was signed in 1997 and ratified (reluctantly, and to little effect) by us Canadians in 2002.

We’ve learned to practice the three ‘R’s – reduce, re-use and re-cycle. Of course our generation can’t take too much credit for these particular advances because our forefathers and mothers regularly practiced them, albeit more likely due to economic necessity and everyday practicality than for environmental stewardship.

But, despite all the efforts we make on an individual; community; national or planetary basis, our environment becomes more foul by the day. Chemical contamination pervades every species up and down the food chain, including us. Every year thousands of new chemicals are added to the mix. Greenhouse gasses continue to build. The climate is changing. Deserts are growing while the forests and glaciers shrink. And, species extinction is taking place at a rate of 70,000 to 130,000 species per year – a rate not dissimilar to the last great extinction period 65 million years ago.

Even if these things weren’t happening, we’re still in a very serious situation. The green revolution (which was ironically not green in the sense we mean it today. It was accompanied by massive chemical fertilizer and pesticide applications, and a move away from bio-diversity and small, mixed farms) gave us a rise in global, land-based food production and the accompanying rise of the human population.

Now, our food production system is seemingly addicted to chemical inputs. A soil deadened by un-natural inputs requires ever more because the natural soil has become depleted. The run-off and seepage has contaminated our water: underground; fresh surface water; and our oceans too! In Saskatchewan, all the surface water and one third of the groundwater is contaminated. There are more than 400 dead zones (and growing) in every ocean of the world.

Other side effects of a system struggling to feed nearly 7 billion people are the potential extinction of up to one third of all known fish species, including 90% of all large predatory ocean fish that have already disappeared, and increased deforestation to make way for more cropland.

To add insult to injury, the same corporations and economic geniuses that delivered us this mess have been deploying what some have called the second green revolution. This is being achieved through advances in biology; genetics; and chemistry, mixed together in the engineering of life forms never before possible.

One common example is the engineering of chemical pesticide resistance within a crop. The result is an increased use of chemicals because the crop won’t be hurt by multiple and increased applications. There are two simple, yet opposite explanations for this development. One: the ability to kill every pest and plant in a field besides the intended crop may bring higher and more consistent yields, thereby benefitting farmers and their communities. Two: the corporations that genetically engineered plants to resist pesticide also market the chemicals, guaranteeing an increased flow of capital from the farm and farmer to multi-nationals and their shareholders.

This brings us to the crux of the problem. Our global economic system depends on growth and profit. This growth is built out of the debt we generate, both in dollars and in depleted resources. Our future generations may be able to pay back one of those debts.

Our environment depends on diversity and a recycling of life’s building blocks within a finite system. Simply put, infinite economic growth in a finite environment is bound to crash both systems.

So, here we are. Early 21st century, and in case you haven’t yet noticed (Saskatchewan being one of the last jurisdictions in the world to feel it) the global financial and economic system is failing. Entire nations are going broke. Even the wealthy are feeling the hit (insert sad music here).

But, there’s hope. There is always hope. If, as a species we can engineer cities; spacecraft; and new life forms, then certainly we can engineer (or rather, re-engineer) an economic system built on sustainability, not on debt and growing profits.

Imagine an economic system that provides our needs without pitting us against one another for scarce resources. Imagine our farmers, academics, scientists, politicians and laborers co-operating with one another rather than compete down to the lowest common denominator. Imagine using up our remaining non-renewable resources (oil, coal, gas, minerals) in a responsible way, instead of manufacturing energy intensive tools and toys designed to become obsolete and thus replaced over and over again.

Imagine utilizing our renewable resources to maximum benefit. The sun always shines, the wind always blows and the water always flows… somewhere. For example, the amount of solar energy reaching the earth in a mere 15 minutes could generate our entire global electricity needs for a year.

Imagine working to provide food clothing and shelter on a local basis rather than trade your labour for taxes – which are then applied to the interest of a debt we shouldn’t have to begin with and is impossibly repayable anyway.

And perhaps best of all, imagine a society that rewards those who work towards those goals instead of what we see today – abuse; ridicule; scorn; and knee jerk discrediting. Imagine a society that takes pride in environmental stewardship and truly sustainable development. That’s what I imagined when we moved to Craik, on Earth Day 2007. Essentially, a blue-print of hope to be shared and built upon in community after community, across the country and around the world.

Maybe the fortieth Earth Day will help motivate the rest of us to embrace environmentalism full-time, not just give it a passing nod once a year, if at all. Well we’re at it we could restructure the global corporate economy too. It’s not a contest to see who recycles more, or uses less energy, but it is a contest for the survival of ours and every other species on the planet.

If we keep to “business as usual”, our progeny will curse us to their end. Let’s take an honest accounting of our priorities and the effects of our present actions. Maybe then our future generations will have something to work with. Maybe someday they’ll have what we lack – clean air and water; healthy soil, forests and oceans; a less erratic climate; and justice for all.