As protests go, the record-setting attendance at No Kings 3 events held across the nation and around the world in March made history. Here in Cowley County, the two events people could join attracted 350 protestors, double the attendance at the last No Kings event in October. Events nationwide drew an estimated 8 million people. But these notable efforts were dwarfed by another historic protest: Earth Day 1970, when 20 million people gathered in local events to demand action on environmental issues.

Their efforts worked, and led to the passage of the Clean Air act, Clean Water act, and Endangered Species act. Climate change was a concern back then also, as Global Warming, but before meaningful action could take place the progress brought about by those first Earth Day protestors halted when billionaires took note. “What? You mean we can’t just use all this to make more billions?”

Today, fifty-six years after that first protest, “Climate change is the biggest story there is, affecting every single person, no matter where you live,” writes journalist Vernon Loeb, of Inside Climate News. And yet this huge issue looming over our future gets buried by daily humanitarian, economic, and political crises.

As Robert Hubbell puts it: “One of the challenges we face is simultaneously competing in dozens of ‘sprints’ to react quickly to Trump’s illegal actions while also running a marathon. We can rack up dozens of ‘short-term’ wins, but if we aren’t planning for the long term, we risk losing everything.”

Adam Kinzinger reminds us, “Trump’s hostility toward science and academic institutions has been well-documented. Science had borne the brunt of Trump’s anti-intellectualism as federal research programs have been gutted and thousands of scientists fired from CDC, NASA, EPA, and NIH. Grants to study the problem of climate change have been canceled and data has been cherry-picked to justify reducing pollution controls.”

One of the most recent attacks on our scientific and research communities was the reorganization in early April of the US Forest Service, just in time for the wildfire season with its annual disastrous impact. The action comes at a time when the snow-pack equivalent after last winter is 50% or less for all of western US except isolated pockets. Some areas have 0% of their typical snowpack equivalent. We’re going into fire season already dry.

After attacking all the bipartisan acts that passed 50 years ago and hollowing out our research capabilities, we are the only country that clings to a false promise of petrochemical prosperity. It’s as if our country is voluntarily handing the future leadership of civilization to China, who is now leading the world in alternative energy technology.

With every crisis we’ve faced since January 2025—ICE attacking US citizens and peaceful immigrants, building concentration camps on US soil, the Epstein files, DOGE leaking our personal data to unqualified techs, voter suppression, axing DEI, war crimes, our president threatening an entire civilization in our name—it’s easy to push the looming climate crisis into the background.

It’s a little bit like the old adage about the forest and the trees, only now, we can’t see the flames roiling across the distant landscape when we’re throwing buckets of water on each new tree that ignites in our backyard.

But Jess Craven reminds us, “Folks, we can’t let that happen. We need to be able to do both – to defend our democracy AND preserve a livable planet for future generations.”

This Earth Day, we should spend time savoring our relationship with our awesome home planet. Astronaut Christina Koch who made history in the recent successful Artemis II moon mission shared her thoughts as she viewed our fragile planet from the moon. “I found myself noticing not only the beauty of Earth, but how much blackness there is around it and how that made it even more special. It truly emphasized how alike we are, how the same thing keeps every single person on planet Earth alive. We evolved on the same planet, and we have some shared things about how we love and live that are just universal. And the specialness and preciousness of that really is emphasized when you notice how much else there is around it.”

Take a moment wherever you are to marvel at the miraculous—birds, flowers, renewing life. As Robert Hubbell wrote, “We are truly fortunate to be living on a small planet near a hospitable, middle-aged star in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way. We should pause more often to reflect on that fact.”

And when you’re done reflecting on our living planet, consider taking more steps to defend its life-supporting systems. As indigenous peoples remind us, Earth has taken care of us for generations. We should respond with reciprocity and take care of our Earth. A few simple things to consider: download the Climate Action Now app and take a few actions they share every day. Subscribe to the Substack “Daily Dose of Climate Hope,” and Vernon Loeb’s “Inside Climate News.”

Make every day Earth Day this year.