Earth Days | Inside Yankee

My son Josh was born on Earth Day 1988, and he grew up with a love of natural places seemingly imbued by fate. I mention him here because it is his generation and the ones that follow that will judge how we have treated this planet. This year Earth Day will be observed on Sunday, April 22, in nearly 200 countries, and we will watch on our TVs and on our computer screens the scenes from rallies warning of a carbon-heavy climate future that seems to become more real by the day.

I write this a week after a “bomb cyclone” in early January battered coastal Massachusetts with frigid waves. We saw gripping photos of firefighters nearly waist-deep in water on Boston’s Long Wharf; we saw images of cars at Gloucester High School encased in floodwaters and ice. Last fall we watched hurricanes lash Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico and felt relieved we lived here, untouched—and now we were confronted with our own vulnerability. Nobody should be surprised. The climate scientists have warned that over the coming decades, stretching into the next century, New England is poised to suffer some of the biggest temperature increases, the most precipitation, the fiercest storms. So what do we make of it, when it feels as if we just had an unwelcome preview?

I know our readers look to Yankee for beauty, for love of the land, for this region’s traditions and history, and also to meet people from all walks of life who enrich the six states we call home. Yet sometimes the stories that may shake us a bit demand their due—and these are the kinds of stories you’ll find in our special report “Our Land, Our Sea, Our Future.” They show how New England has earned a historic place in the conservation movement [“Two Voices, One Message,” and “Green Milestones,” caring about the planet is in our DNA. But they also lay out a cautionary tale in which we all play a part. “Rising Seas” will give you pause. It is meant to. New England was shaped by the sea, and it now must find a way to adapt to what a changing sea may bring.

I believe New England is a place where the world will look for answers to what can seem like unsolvable problems, because many of the greatest minds and innovators live here. They are already designing ways to make a livable future. But we all own a stake in what happens today, tomorrow, 20 years hence. We need to get astride our horses and, like Paul Revere, ride hard and fast, fearless in our warning, driven to spread the truth. Earth days depend on us.

Mel Allen
editor@yankeemagazine.com