Once government officials began to lift pandemic-related mask regulations, many environmentalists warned about a landscape littered with masks and other debris. After U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle of Florida invalidated mask mandates on public transportation, airlines and other carriers reported planes, buses and other vehicles littered with the items. Flight attendants and airline officials said people almost ceremoniously tossed the masks onto seats or into the air.
On this Earth Day, we note that this lack of concern for cleanliness is perhaps the major reason Earth Day was created 51 years ago, as people began to worry about the effects of pollution on the world, and on our health.
Let us remember that the first steps that were advised to fight the spread of the COVID-19 virus was simply to learn how to wash our hands better, and more often. We were told to clean doorknobs, desks and kitchen counters. Even the masks that many people continue to wear, even after mandates have been lifted, are meant to protect us from any germs that unmasked people might spew into the air.
The pandemic is something new, and we can’t know how much the masks might have helped or how much worse the pandemic might have been without their use. We do know, however, that the incidence of flu, colds and other communicable diseases for which we do have a history, fell dramatically after people started living cleaner lives and reducing public contact.
Mandates on public behavior shouldn’t be necessary, and we can’t know if they’re effective. How many people wouldn’t have worn masks without them? How many might have, if they didn’t mean to defy the mandate?
We all should be willing to care for the earth that sustains us, and it should not be a political matter.
All we need do is remember just a few decades ago when America’s larger cities were shrouded with a nasty gunk called smog. It was so prevalent that late-night talk show hosts joked about it nightly. The government created an air-quality index and newscasts told viewers what their area’s number was every day. Some days they actually told us that the air was so dirty that people with respiratory problems should not go outside.
Then we took action. Yes, some of it was mandated by government, but some of it was driven by the market, and some was simply concerned Americans choosing to do their part by reducing energy consumption.
We lowered highway speed limits. We installed pollution-control devices on cars and industrial smokestacks. Fuel was reformulated to reduce pollutants. We bought smaller, more fuel-efficient cars and reset thermostats from the old standard of 68 degrees to 72. Businesses were asked to simply turn off the lights at the end of the day.
All these seemingly small steps added up, and the air began to clear. Dirty air still exists in some areas and on some days, but it no longer is constant.
However, that history shows us that yes, our actions do have an effect on the world and yes, we can do something about it.
Let us all pledge to live cleaner lives, and reduce waste and pollutants that we all know is unsightly and harmful, to wildlife and to ourselves.
