Buzzing about Earth Day

Bill Knight column for Thurs., Fri., or Sat., April 19, 20 or 21, 2018

As the annual Earth Day approaches this weekend, the thought arises that since people apparently can no longer count on the U.S. government for as much assistance in environmental progress, it’s up to us individually and as volunteers, with small groups or whole neighborhoods or communities, to do what we can.

(It’s reminiscent of the 1955 song and prayer “Let There Be Peace on Earth,” with its key line: “Let it begin with me.”)

Personally, recycling is routine, a conversion to geothermal has been a win-win, and energy-saving changes are ongoing. Statewide, there are impressive efforts that have local levels of government stepping up and even private efforts that have the good sense of an old-fashioned barn-raising.

Of course, the Trump administration virtually denies climate change, and it’s trying to abandon the Paris Accords, to cut the budget, staff and purpose of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to weaken foundational laws like the Clean Air and Clear Water Acts, and to somehow defend the indefensible EPA administrator Scott Pruitt from his actions. All that happens a year after President Trump tweeted a transparently false message about Earth Day 2017:

“On Earth Day, we celebrate our beautiful forests, lakes and land,” Trump tweeted. “We stand committed to preserving the natural beauty of our nation.”

This was after reviving the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines; issuing an executive order directing the EPA to dismantle the Waters of the United States rule (an anti-pollution expansion of authority over wetlands and waterways); and getting Pruitt – the ex-Oklahoma Attorney General who criticized and sued the EPA – to be his eco-hatchet man.

But in Illinois, positives are happening. A school district in Fulton County that four years ago installed the largest solar array at a U.S. public school, this March approved proceeding with a second solar project that will generate more than 80 percent of its energy needs. Farmington Central CUSD 265 already benefits from a $1.8 million investment in its 2014 756-kilowatt system, and it’s planning to add a 975-kilowatt array made up of 2,700 solar panels covering about 60,000 square feet in three plots on school property – this time with no cash outlay thanks to the state’s Solar Renewable Energy Credit program and a money-generating component worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to the school over coming decades.

In addition, developers from Clean Energy Design Group of Springfield and the District are working with University of Illinois “Master Gardeners” and the Illinois Bee Association to have pollinating native plants growing beneath panels to contribute to efforts to fight colony collapse and other crisis among pollinators, a creative and original idea.

A statewide endeavor to help another important pollinator, the Eastern Monarch butterfly – Illinois’ state insect – is underway, too, as the non-profit Prairie Rivers Network is coordinating plans for businesses, churches, citizens groups and youths to help restore and protect habitat for the Monarch and other pollinators. Whether butterflies or bees, pollinators are literally vital for the production of fruits and crops such as corn, plus flowers and more. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says more than 75 percent of flowering plants, and almost 75 percent of crops require pollination.

“In Illinois, pollinators are faced with a largely unfriendly, unpalatable environment dominated by corn, soybeans, turfgrass and asphalt,” says prairierivers.org, an affiliate of the National Wildlife Foundation. “Pollinators need flowering forbs, shrubs and trees. Different pollinators have different needs, and like people, pollinators benefit from diverse diets. Therefore, plant diversity is key to creating good pollinator habitat.”

Monarch butterflies – which travel some 3,000 miles from Mexico through the Midwest and into Canada – especially need milkweed, where they lay eggs and newborn caterpillars dine on milkweed (their main food). But the plant is disappearing. That, along with habitat loss, insecticides, disease and other threats, is why Monarch populations have dropped by more than 80 percent.

Partnering with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Prairie Rivers is raising money to help restore and protect the Monarch and its habitat, and individuals can make a difference, too, by installing milkweed and flowering plants in yards.

“Let there be peace on Earth,” indeed. (Let there be Earth!) Let it begin with me.