Earth Day Open Thread

Tomorrow is Earth Day, the Festivus of the environmental movement.

What do you think about it?

Go here for a list of reason's previous articles and comments on ED.

If you must read one reason Earth Day story, in Gaia's name, make it Ron Bailey's tremendous May 2000 cover story, "Earth Day, Then and Now: The planet's future has never looked better. Here's why." A snippet:

[Like the original sponsors of Earth Day,] many contemporary environmental alarmists are similarly mistaken when they continue to insist that the Earth's future remains an eco-tragedy that has already entered its final act. Such doomsters not only fail to appreciate the huge environmental gains made over the past 30 years, they ignore the simple fact that increased wealth, population, and technological innovation don't degrade and destroy the environment. Rather, such developments preserve and enrich the environment. If it is impossible to predict fully the future, it is nonetheless possible to learn from the past. And the best lesson we can learn from revisiting the discourse surrounding the very first Earth Day is that passionate concern, however sincere, is no substitute for rational analysis.