The Meaning of Earth Day

A time to renew our bonds to the sea

April 22, 2020, marks the 50th observance of Earth Day. For us coastal types this golden anniversary is a golden opportunity to renew the ties that bind us to the sea—and to each other. I still crack up when I recall hearing about the 15-year-old boy aboard ship on the third day of a cruise who, approaching a group of teenage girls, wanted to turn on the charm and appear worldly. He said, “Hi. Are you girls from around here?”

In truth, we are all from “around here.” More than 70 percent of our planetary home is covered by the oceans that gave birth to all biological life. The water we drink is the same our ancestors drank; what we use to bathe, to cook, to mix is all recycled by Mother Earth. Every year around April 15 (income tax deadline), we think of what we must give away (have you ever noticed that when you put together the words the and IRS it spells

theirs?). But every April 22 we have the chance to think about what is ours, given to us by our remarkable environment. Like all good gifts, our waters need to be appreciated and cared for.

In fall 2018 our Gulf-coast habitat was harmed by the twin scourges of red tide and blue-green algae. In response, caregivers from both the private and public sectors took action. Instrumental in water-quality research and monitoring is the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation Marine Laboratory. Consulted by county and state leaders, the lab is part of a huge multi-institution National Science Foundation Grant to study the interaction of red tide and blue-green algae. The

SCCF scientists are giving a virtuoso performance (the Latin virtus means strength, moral excellence—conformity to a standard of right, beneficent and capacity to act for the good). Operating in a new building with additional equipment and maintaining strategically placed floating stations, they also have launched a stateof-the-art research vessel, the R/V

Norma Campbell. Like the surgeon’s knife in skilled hands or the X-ray machine read by a trained eye, this boat is a tool used for the health and well-being of the web of life that connects us with all Floridian creatures in the air, on land, or under the sea.

Meanwhile, we can play our part in this concert by simply paying attention. Mary Oliver’s poem, “Breakage,” provides the sheet music:

I go down to the edge of the sea. / How everything shines in the morning light! / The cusp of the whelk, / the broken cupboard of the clam, / the opened, blue mussels, / moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred— / and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split, / dropped by gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone. / It’s like a schoolhouse / of little words, / thousands of words. / First you figure out what each one means by itself, / the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop full of moonlight. /

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.

—Isak Dinesen, pen name of author Karen Blixen (1885-1962)