The Children Know Best - An Earthday Reminder.

I surf 3-4 days a week and I've become painfully aware how dirty the oceans are becoming. It has concerned me for many years now.  The other day I saw a glimmer of hope however.  As I was finishing up a surf session and leaving the water I witnessed an astonishing moment of courage and awareness.

A family was gathering their belongings together to leave the beach and they were leaving a noticable amount of trash behind as they were walking away.  A very young girl who had been playing nearby in the sand, noticed the transgression.  I was intrigued as she gathered up several plastic bottles and a couple zip lock bags and called out to the leaving adults.

"Excuse me,"  she said to the two adults leading their children towards the parking lot.  "Excuse me"  she said again.  The father turned around and stopped for a moment.  The young girl move toward the adults with the plastic bottle and bags in her arms and said, " I think you forgot this stuff."  The man looked a little surprised and bothered by this unexpected interruption. Before the man could say anything, the wife quickly came over and said,  "Oh, I'm sorry. We just must have missed that stuff."   

The young girl replied that it was ok. She just wanted to make sure it didn't stay on the beach.  The woman took all the discarded items and went over to deposit the stuff in the garbage can.

  I was pleasantly astonished and went over to the young lady and told her how proud I was of her to be that brave.  She smiled broadly and just said,  " There's just too much junk out here."  She headed back to her play spot and continued to dig in the sand.

It seems these days that the young people of the world are beginning to take charge of reminding the world that we all need to take responsibility for keeping our earth a liveable place to be.

Earthday is only one out of 365 opportunities to improve the state of the earth, so let's use it as a quick reminder that a healthy planet is a necessary daily effort.  We all need to take accountability

In some places, things are dire. In other places, things are getting better.

This is an entire island of plastic trash.

It's almost impossible to escape all the plastic in some parts of the Maldives.

A couple years ago I went to the Maldives for a much anticipated surf trip.  When I arrived at  the Maldives Islands I discovered that these islands were being devastated by refuse and plastic waste.  What should have been some of the most beautiful areas on earth was buried in plastic waste.  In fact, there is one island that is literally buried in plastic waste as depicted in the first image above.  

In striking contrast to what's happening in some of the Maldive areas, Thailand on the other hand, where the government closed down Maya Bay on the island of Phi Phi Leh in 2018. 

Thousands of tourists used to visit Maya Bay daily.  It was destroying reefs and scaring away fish and other sea life.

In June 2018, Thailand made a hard choice. Officials closed Maya Bay to everyone, knowing tourism money would be lost. For years, no boats entered, and no crowds arrived. Scientists worked on coral repair. Nature was finally left alone to heal.  The change was clear. Coral grew stronger. Fish returned. Marine life came back in numbers not seen for years. When the bay reopened in 2022, strict limits were put in place. Fewer visitors, controlled access, and no swimming in sensitive areas. Maya Bay now stands as proof that tourism can continue, but only when nature comes first.

It becomes clear that human existance has an overwhelming effect on the conditions of this planet.  It's also clear that when humans take responsible actions to keep our planet safe and healthy, humans can be the driving force that keeps the planet livable for all.  We live in challenging times when events like interstellar travel is again being considered. We just had a crew of Artemus II travel around the moon and back.  It would be terrific if we don't ultimately have  further develop space travel as a remedy to leaving a dying planet.  

Let's all become a little more conscientious in our actions.  Let's use Earthday as a reminder that we can all, everyone of us, do a better job of reducing the dire effects of human existance on the earth.  If we could just use the courage of the young girl on the beach and remember that one small action can make a real difference if each of us would just take that one small action.  Let's use Earthday as the reminder to do better.