As we celebrate Earth Day, I’m wondering how many people know and really appreciate “the reason for the season,” as we say at Christmastime. In fact at its basic level, Earth Day is tied up with and just as essential as the birth of Jesus Christ: The Earth we live on and our Lord Jesus Christ are both wonderful, invaluable gifts from God, neither of which we fully comprehend. While we’re supposed to cherish them both, it seems as though we ignore one and take the other one for granted, doing everything we can to degrade, use up and destroy it.

Earth Day, now widely celebrated throughout the month of April, acknowledges our appreciation of the planet and reminds us that we must protect it to keep it. I think Earth Day needs to become a national holiday, where we take off work and drill down on collective actions. What would the air look like if no one in the United States turned on a combustion engine all day, or if every American over age 6 planted a tree, all on the same day? Yes, these are small actions, but they become mighty when done collectively. That’s how we we’ll beat climate change and save our environment for ourselves—through billions of people taking billions of tiny actions every day.

Earth Day as we know it came into being in 1970, created by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson as a way to force this issue onto the national agenda. Twenty million Americans demonstrated in different U.S. cities, and Congress authorized the creation of a new federal agency, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to tackle environmental issues. Now, 50 years later, people are still demonstrating for various environmental causes, crises and emerging issues almost every day. And though there’s still lots of progress to be made, we have already made much. I think one of our greatest accomplishments is the widespread knowledge that if we wish to survive and thrive, then protecting and caring for our Earth and the things God put on it is not optional!

It’s now well recognized that the health of the planet is all tied up with individual and societal health. Our own Healthy Living Healthy Planet Radio has been making this point—helping listeners see, explore and understand how environmental issues affect our health—for almost three years now. We work with scientists, researchers, advocates, NGOs and government agencies, inviting experts and doers to come talk with our audience of ordinary people and show them how important environmental issues affect their everyday lives, even though the “hot spots” may be elsewhere—you know, the way COVID started, and how we know we’re about to get a new strain and round of infections when we learn that China is having a fresh outbreak.

We hope that this Earth Day issue, with its focus on the interrelationship between the planet’s health and human health, educates and inspires you about choices you can make and actions you can take to control your own well-being. This month’s issue also contains our annual Healthy Living Directory, where you can find many seasoned health and wellness practitioners and businesses, see their credentials and read their healing philosophies. And don’t miss the health briefs near the front of magazine. This monthly section is always a source of useful and actionable nuggets of information. As always, it’s our goal to help you along your journey to living a healthier life on a healthy planet.

Blessings until next month,