… The cry of the earth and the cry of the poor are resounding in this time of the pandemic. This is why Earth Day this year is the most meaningful ever. Everything we have said could go wrong because of environmental irresponsibility has gone wrong at great economic and human cost. Moving forward, we must abandon outdated notions of cost-benefit analysis and trade-off between economic and environmental interests when what is at stake is human well-being and public health. When an activity or industry can cause a pandemic or global climate change, there is no economic or other justification that can be invoked that allows for that activity. I hope government and business will internalize this now. In my case, never again will I accept any action, law, or agreement that compromises the health of our planet and sacrifices the poor.
In making this commitment, I am aware that I am part of a community of practice bonded together by love of people and planet. In writing this column, I honor three pillars of that community – Pat Dugan, Jun Factoran, and Sonny Alvarez. All three were great human beings; I owe a lot to them as veterans who walked earlier than me in this fight for Mother Earth. I will write in the near future a longer obituary honoring these pioneers.
In this column, I once quoted Rainier Maria Rilke, the great German poet, who has said it very well: “Everything is far and long gone by. I think that the star glittering above me has been dead for a million years. I would like to step out of my heart and go walking beneath the enormous sky. I would like to pray. And surely of all the stars that perished long ago, one still exists. I think that I know which one it is.”
I quoted these words of Rilke in a column ten years ago. It is my hope, that because we cared and took action, and especially after this devastating pandemic, that centuries from now, our descendants too would come out and walk beneath the sky and say: Our planet still exists.