Earth crisis is a term that captures the emergency of climate change. Although, it is more common to hear about the planetary crisis. The planetary crisis concerns three issues: climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. These challenges are known as the triple planetary crisis.
Earth crisis and Earth Day
Earth Day is one of the biggest environmental protest movements that exist today. The first one happened on April 22 in the year 1970. It started in the United States as a day to demonstrate against human activities that harm the environment. It was a massive campaign that spread across the entire country. By the year 1990, it had grown into a global happening. It mobilised 200 million people in 141 countries. For example, Earth Day 1990 led to massive recycling efforts worldwide.
Today, Earth Day has become the largest secular observance in the world. The campaign aims to diversify, educate and trigger the global environmental movement. Earth Day is currently working with more than 150.000 partners in 192 countries. More so, around 1 billion people from more than 190 countries participate in the demonstrations and projects of the campaign.
Due to the urgency of the current climate crisis, Earth Day was called “Earth Crisis Day” by some climate groups in 2022.
The triple planetary crisis
As mentioned above, the triple planetary crisis refers to three interlinking issues: climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. Climate change is the most urgent problem. Yet, pollution is also affecting most people on planet Earth. Shockingly, the World Health Organisation states that nine out of ten people worldwide breathe polluted air. More so, biodiversity is the backbone of nature. Therefore, biodiversity loss has critical consequences.
To address these issues, the UN has created three different agencies. There is the UNFCCC for climate change, the UN Environment for pollution and the UN Biodiversity.
