The Tribune

By MALCOLM STRACHAN

EVERY year, on April 22, the world marks Earth Day – to some extent or another.

The day is a US creation – way back in 1970 organisers wanted to throw a spotlight on the environmental problems facing the country. It has expanded far and beyond since.

Here in The Bahamas, you would be forgiven if you had not noticed much about the day.

To be fair, there are efforts each year on the part of non-governmental organisations, particularly. This weekend, the Bahamas National Trust set about publicising the opportunity for Bahamians to explore our national parks for free, while various other groups held activities such as litter picks and so on.

But as an event itself, it seems that Earth Day is just like one of those many other national or international days that come and go with little to actually show for them.

I can be fond of National Pi Day, for example, on March 14 (3.14) but I’m sure not many of you went out of your way to sit down to play on National Scrabble Day on April 14. There are plenty of other so-called national holidays of equal merit, or lack thereof.

Of course, then there are substantial ones too – such as International Women’s Day last month, which was marked here in The Bahamas by the usual speeches and press releases about how important women are and how we must celebrate them.

Since then, we have seen the prime minister obfuscating about the issue of marital rape, saying that yes, “rape is rape” but then seeming to act confused about why we would need to describe rape, as if the law does not actually do that already (the words “who is not his spouse” being the description that stops raped wives being able to get justice).

Then there is the thunderous lack of action on building shelters – note the plural – for abused women. Back in July last year, Social Services Minister Obie Wilchcombe was talking about the first of four shelters being weeks away. None of those have been built and the government is apparently still in negotiations over the first one. Clearly, it has not been a priority.

Nor has legislation to give women the same rights as men when it comes to citizenship. Despite the government frequently being asked about such a move, it seems to be eternally being kicked down the road, women’s rights less important to this government than its sparring match with the Grand Bahama Port Authority, said to be hugely important, but not important enough to show the public the report on which its $357m demand is based.

So, accepting that so much that is said on these national or international days is nothing more than lip service, we can note that barely anything has been said about Earth Day or its build-up by this administration, and accept that even less will be done – if it is possible to have less than zero.

But should that be the case?

After all, our leader, Philip “Brave” Davis, has made climate change and the environment his calling card. Internationally, he came to prominence with his speech about how “we cannot out-run your carbon emissions; we cannot out-run the hurricanes which are becoming more powerful; and we cannot out-run the rising sea levels as our islands disappear beneath the seas”.

Mr Davis became the face – for a while – of the fight against climate change, a figurehead for smaller nations holding larger nations to account.

In that sense, Earth Day should be a chance to reiterate such demands, and of showcasing what we are doing to play our part.

The trouble is, we do not seem to be doing much.

The theme for this year’s Earth Day is Planet vs Plastics – and for a nation that has such a large amount of sea, and the sea life that can be harmed by plastics, we do surprisingly little to deal with the problem.

Legislation was brought in to get rid of single-use plastics, sure, but how often do we still see people toting their food with their plastic fork? Few of us bother to try to separate out plastics from other garbage – because there is no real effort to separate those nationally when garbage is collected. Recycling is not even an afterthought for most.

For those of us who have lived elsewhere, such separation of items into different garbage bins has become second nature, to the point where it feels strange and wrong putting it all into one bin here at home.

It is not that people don’t want to help, either. Again, for those of us who have lived overseas, one thing that is welcome here at home is the number of people and organisations who actually do their part in trying to clean up our environment. This weekend, there will have been litter picks and beach clean-ups as part of Earth Day events – but it is not as if that is an uncommon occurrence. Quite regularly, we see volunteers working to clear up our beaches and roads – although, admittedly, there are plenty of others in our country happy to toss their garbage onto the tarmac and sand for others to clean up afterwards.

If we were to truly embrace Earth Day, including and perhaps especially politically, it could play a signature part in our campaign to call other nations to account for climate change.

Earth Day could be the day we lay legislation to tackle issues to show we are serious. Instead, I will bet you will barely hear a whimper from our Environment Minister, let alone a rallying cry. Quick test – what meaningful contribution on environment issues can you remember the minister offering?

I was reading recently about Songkran – the water festival in Thailand which sees pretty much the whole nation marking the end of the rice festival and the new year by a countrywide water fight. It lasts for days, with people using squirt guns and water buckets to splash one another.

Internationally, it draws headlines – and visitors – and also draws the nation together.

 Could we draw ourselves together by standing united on Earth Day? To make it have meaning. To become a symbol of how we wish to lead the way on environment issues. On holding up The Bahamas as a shining example of the best that we can be? To show the world why our clear seas matter, or why our lands should be clean, our beaches perfect, our efforts to improve the environment at the heart of our national being?

We could set the agenda on renewable energy. We could be world-leading on recycling. We could. But we are not even at the starting line on such issues let alone leading the field.

So this Earth Day, as you read whatever press releases are put out, whatever words officials say, make a note to come back to the issue in a month’s time and see if anything has happened since, or whether it was just words for the sake of saying words.

We could do more. We could set our sights on the next Earth Day and really embrace it. We won’t.

But just as with International Women’s Day, don’t expect us to listen to fine words and then watch as there is zero action. We can see through that. And with an election starting to appear on the distant horizon, don’t get us used to seeing through you.