Today, April 22 2017, is Earth Day and we’re celebrating with crayons. That’s right…drop by any of our locations and color in one these awesome “I love earth” pages any day this week. For each one that’s completed, we will donate $4.22 to 1% For the Planet. You don’t even have to color between the lines!  

Earth Day carries more gravity this year than ever before, which is why we’re making this effort to call attention to it. With the March for Science happening today and the People’s Climate March next week, this week is a watershed moment for modern day environmentalism. Across the country and world, millions of global citizens will stand up for scientific truth and for the principals of conserving and appreciating the only planet we have.

There is no doubt that so much activism at once is driven by a grave threat: climate change, and  the deniers of it who are currently in power. These politicians are ignoring established scientific theory, undermining our environmental institutions, destroying data that tracks environmental changes, and injecting politics into an arena it has no business in.

The Skinny Pancake rallies around an environmental mission “to change the world by creating a safer, healthier and more delicious food shed.” We do not have a mission to take political stands. We want to welcome all walks of life as guests to enjoy the Skinny Pancake.

But wait, isn’t this a political statement, and shouldn’t we shy away from it? No. Our fervent belief is that love of our planet and heeding established science should not be a political position, so we will not treat it that way. Historically, environmentalism used to be a bipartisan issue, and we want to do our part to reunite around it. Earth Day was created by a Republican Congressman Pete McLoskey and a Democratic Senator Gaylord Nelson. The EPA was created by Republican President Richard Nixon and strengthened by Republican President George H.W. Bush. Both of them, and many other Republicans of yore, spoke compellingly about the need to protect our environment.

Loving our planet is a shared goal that all of us can rally around. Inaction only accelerates the incoming tide. As David Titley, Director of the Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate at Pennsylvania State University, explained, “The atmosphere doesn’t care what any single person believes. It’s just going to keep getting warmer, and the climate’s going to change as long as we keep increasing the amount of greenhouse gasses.”

The scientific consensus is clear: climate change is human-caused, dire consequences are potentially around the corner, and our current trajectory must change immediately.  The the best way out of the predicament is international accord to move toward cleaner fuels, efficiency in construction and transportation, better urban planning, food production, waste management, and more.  The technology to solve this problem already exists and will only improve. The will to address it exists, especially if the United States would lead the way. If human ingenuity could create the industrial revolution, the Internet, and put a man on the moon, we can band together and clean up our atmosphere. All it takes is action, today and every day going forward.

#everydayisearthday.  

Sources:

http://www.earthday.org/about/the-history-of-earth-day/

http://www.npr.org/2017/03/09/519499975/epa-head-scott-pruitt-doubts-basic-consensus-on-climate-change

https://350.org/about/science/