Earth Day Pandemic Fomo Freakout
By David Rothenberg, Safina Center Fellow
Earth Day, happy fifty years of life! Every year you rear your head, and we wonder, are things any better now for our planet and our place on it? I remember that first Earth Day, just a little. I was in elementary school… and they told us we needed to save the Earth. Sounded good to me, already then I was wandering in the woods alone as often as I could, talking to myself, talking to birds. But wait… now we see the pictures of the first Earth Day parade, one of the biggest public demonstrations of 1970, or biggest ever in the USA! Look, shows the New Yorker, even then people were wearing masks. Well, with incinerators burning up our mountains of garbage, the air was far more toxic then than now.
OK, Earth Day 2020, midnight in Berlin, 6pm in New York. I began this day with a live online concert with my loyal nightingales, me playing clarinet in New York, Lembe Lokk singing in Paris, and Deutschland Radio broadcasting the nightingales in high resolution audio. Here is the mix. At least technology has advance in fifty years. Still, I am sorry I can’t be there in person, that is so much more real.
Photo: David Rothenberg
Photo: Monika Dorniak
Next morning, Earth Day in the USA begins in earnest. I awake to Greta Thunberg and scientist Johan Rockström. “In a crisis people are good,” Greta reminds us. “People can and will work together.” A few times she corrects him. Johan looks impressed, he seems to be thinking, this girl really knows her stuff. Their converstation is a bit clearer than our interspecies one. It is quite hard to convince a nightingale to wear headphones.
A few hours later I need to get online and offer some possible wisdom to When Corona Met Climate Change, organized by the Environmental Studies Program of the University of Vermont, in this two hour marathon each person just gets three minutes, and that seems like a fine use of disembodied technology. If bored by someone, just wait, no one stays on long. And a few hours later, another, the global network of creators called Ecoartspace offered The Great Pause 2020: Earth Day Dialogues and here I was honored to play a live duet concert with Michael Pestel, the man who first got me into making music with birds. We had so much fun that a few days later we reprised the event and did a better recording of our interaction.
Just as I started to feel like I was doing my part to save the Earth, that old nausea started to creep in. There were far bigger Earth Day online parties going on. EarthDayLive2020 was even three days long, and I wasn’t even invited to even ONE of the three days! Too many celebrities waiting to save the planet, not even three minutes left for ME! Natalie Portman, Mark Ruffalo, come on guys… I want to save the planet too. And look… A few hours later and it’s nighttime in Europe on Earth Day and there’s an even BIGGER live nightingale concert, and I wasn’t invited to that one either! Too many English celebrities: Pet Shop Boys! Robert Macfarlane, even Jay Griffiths! Once again I am pining from the sidelines, in quarantine, home and alone…
Oh that’s nothing, I’m sure. There must be far bigger Earth Day celebrations that I don’t even know about. Somewhere Jesus, Mohammed, and the Buddha are live-streaming a trialogue from Mecca to Samsara to Heaven, and they know what’s going down. Says the Buddha, “If you doubt the consequences of one person’s actions, never eat an undercooked bat.”
“Hmmm…” says Jesus, “Love thy neighbor. Without leaving your house.”
“The link of the scholar,” says Muhammad, “is more sacred than the blood of the martyr. Click on. Comment well…. The believer does not slander, curse, or speak in an obscene or foul manner.”
“@*&@*^!” God chimes in on the comment stream. “Look at those humans, they really know how to congratulate themselves.” Five hundred million livestream views! From all across the universe. (Only available to VIP paid subscribers of course. If you are asking the price then you can’t afford it.) God continues, “At least they’ve got Greta Thunberg.”
Click here to save the world. One of many ways to get there. Right now I’ve just got to get outside. In the middle of the road two black vultures are picking at a former squirrel. Let the people hide as the Earth enjoys yet another day.