Fears Coronavirus Impact on “Milestone” Celebration
ALEXANDRIA, VA. (PRWEB) APRIL 17, 2020
With the coronavirus dominating all aspects of American life, NPG President Donald Mann is calling on national environmental organizations, schools, and other eco-friendly groups, to “hold back” in carrying out major events with large gatherings of people when it comes to celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the original Earth Day on April 22nd.
Mann stated: “With our nation’s leaders asking all of us to shelter in place and not personally interact with large crowds, it is truly unfortunate that millions of citizens across America will not be able to participate in their traditional local Earth Day gatherings. This year, these events would surely have been even larger assemblies as we’ve reached a half-century of celebrating Mother Earth.”
What NPG is proposing is that major environmental groups across the country work together to set a new date sometime in the fall, when huge celebrations can hopefully take place. This will encourage everyone across America and the world to actively re-engage and fully utilize this 50th Anniversary year to enthusiastically embrace all that Earth Day represents.
Mann noted: “One of the greatest advantages of adopting a ‘delayed’ celebration will be that tens of millions of students – a key audience for Earth Day’s lessons – will hopefully be back in their classrooms where teachers can stress how critical it is for young people to carry the values of environmental activism throughout their entire lives.” He cited the fact that NPG has worked over the years with thousands of teachers in all 50 states, supplying them with posters, population fact sheets, and other environment-related study aids to make Earth Day lessons a central part of the curriculum each spring. “We simply can’t let the full-scale celebration of Earth Day’s 50th Anniversary become another casualty of the Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic,” Mann declared.
In pushing for a nationwide celebration of Earth Day later in 2020, Mann highlighted that he was not encouraging anyone to downplay the significance of the April 22nd historic date, but to use it to activate and energize millions of people to attend events in September or October. Mann also encouraged citizens of all ages to take the opportunity presented by spending more time at home to access the Internet to better educate themselves about critical environmental issues such as overpopulation, climate change, air and water pollution, destruction of farms, forests and wetlands, and myriad other major problems negatively impacting our planet.
Mann concluded by saying: “I encourage environmental leaders nationwide to sign-on to a huge 50th Earth Day celebration this Fall. In not letting this momentous event be overshadowed by the Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic, we can give it the full recognition it deserves – and set us on the path to decades of events that will recognize our shared commitment to making our planet more livable.”
Founded in 1972, NPG is a national nonprofit membership organization dedicated to educating the American public and political leaders regarding the damaging effects of population growth. We believe that our nation is already vastly overpopulated in terms of the long-range carrying capacity of its resources and environment. NPG advocates the adoption of its Proposed National Population Policy, with the goal of eventually stabilizing U.S. population at a sustainable level – far lower than today’s. We do not simply identify the problems – we propose solutions. For more information, visit our website at http://www.NPG.org, follow us on Facebook @NegativePopulationGrowth or follow us on Twitter @npg_org.
We simply can’t let the full-scale celebration of Earth Day’s 50th Anniversary become another casualty of the Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic.
