Earth Day
Vision for Peace, Justice, and Earth Care
My Life and Thought at Age
John McConnell
The Founder of Earth Day
Edited by John C. Munday Jr.
Earth Day: Vision for Peace, Justice, and Earth Care
My Life and Thought at Age
Copyright 2011 John McConnell and John C. Munday Jr. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, W. th Ave., Suite , Eugene, OR 97401 .
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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Foreword
From the individuals birthday to the observance of United Nations Day, from personal human rights to universal brotherhood, from the family and the city-state to the international community, at long last the concepts of Earth Day, of world patriotism, and the family of man have come into being!
May there only be peaceful and cheerful Earth Days to come for our beautiful Spaceship Earth as it continues to spin and circle in frigid space with its warm and fragile cargo of animate life.
U Thant
F orty-one years ago, John McConnell proposed the idea of Earth Day, a global holiday devoted to the care of the Earth and promotion of peace among nations. He sounded a call that has gone around the world, and generated worldwide awareness of our fragile planet. His Earth Day and his Earth Flag have come to symbolize our responsibility for Earth care.
My father, Secretary-General U Thant, recognized the importance of Earth Day. My father was the th signer of the Earth Day Proclamation, prepared by John McConnell on June , 1970 . Within a year of the first Earth Day celebration on March , 1970 , in San Francisco, my father signed a United Nations Proclamation on February , 1971 to set the spring equinox as Earth Day at the UN. I was greatly inspired to read the Earth Day Proclamation written by Mr. McConnell, and signed by many leaders of thought, in which it said, International Earth Day each year can provide a special time to draw people together in appreciation of their mutual home, Planet Earth, and bring a global feeling of community through realization of our deepening desire for life, freedom and love, and our mutual dependence on each other.
There is a famous photo of the Earth taken from the Moon by the astronauts of the Apollo mission. The documentary film An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore opened with that photo. I have a copy of that photo in my home. The message under the photo reads, As others see us, clearly, One World. That photo is on the Earth Flag developed by John McConnell in 1969 . Today, all over the world, people fly the Earth Flag with the photo of Earth from the Moon. It symbolizes a vision of a world where global citizens have developed a spirit of One World. This message has guided the activities of the U Thant Institute since its inception.
The First Day of Spring was designated as Earth Day by Mr. McConnell. Mr. McConnell described Earth Day as the day of natures equipoise, when we celebrate the wonder of life on our planet. The annual ringing of the Peace Bell at the United Nations building that symbolizes peace, justice, and cooperation, at the first moment of Spring when day and night are equal around the world, reminds us of our belonging to this global community. It gives us a deep sense of collective ownership, and strengthens our commitment to take responsibility to safeguard the natural endowment of the planet Earth and its resources in the interest of future generations. Thus, the ringing of the Peace Bell has become synonymous with Earth Day.
At the first celebration of Earth Day at the United Nations, on March , 1971 , my father sounded an alarm that our small planet is perishable and stated his concern that there is an inherent risk of obliterating all life on Earth with the deterioration of our natural environment. Mans future and mans environment must be conceived and managed wisely if he is to survive and to prosper, my father warned as he noted the challenges facing the planet, including poverty, food shortages, urbanization, the squandering of natural resources, and pollution, among others. But he believed that humanity will be united by the common dangers we all face. Celebration of Earth Day, he said, is now necessary to promote that awareness and to remind us of the fact that our Planet Earth is in crisis.
Forty years ago, my father saw the urgency of the need to solve the environmental problems facing the planet Earth. He said on many occasions, these are problems we have hardly begun to face, and yet the hour is already very late. As we watch the sun go down, evening after evening, through the smog across the poisoned waters of our native earth, we must ask ourselves seriously whether we really wish some future universal historian on another planet to say about us: With all their genius and with all their skill, they ran out of foresight and air and food and water and ideas, or, They went on playing politics until their world collapsed around them.
With the conviction that the UN should play a vital role in preserving and enhancing the life on the planet, my father in May 1969 proposed the creation of a global authority to deal with the problem of the environment. In a statement at the Preparatory Committee on the Conference on the Human Environment on March , 1970 , at the United Nations, he declared, never in the twenty five year history of the United Nations has there been a problem of more relevance to all nations than the present environmental crisis. He added, The crisis of the environment could be the challenge which might show us the way forward to a responsible and a just world societya path which, for all the efforts of the United Nations in the political crisis of our time, has so far eluded us.
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP), with its mission to provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations, is in concert with that of my fathers vision. It is also Mr. McConnells conviction that peace and justice on Earth can come about only when all peoples recognize the importance of our planet as our common home. Mr. McConnell believes that Earth Day is the vehicle for promoting peace and justice among nations.
When I rang the Peace Bell at the UN Earth Day ceremony in 2007 , I said Today is the beginning of spring here in the Northern Hemisphere. It marks the beginning of new life. Each year on Earth Day we reaffirm that the newness of life involves caring for our planetary home and simultaneously caring for each other. We are bound by a common interest in survival. My father always believed in the oneness of humanity. He believed that conflicts dont result from differences in beliefs alone but from lack of education. Mr. McConnell has likewise advocated using Earth Day to educate all groups in society about the interdependence of peace, justice, and cooperation in Earth care.
When I established the U Thant Institute in 2003 , its mission was to reflect my fathers ideals, to advance peace through the virtues of tolerance, cooperation, understanding, and compassion.
