MCKEON: PLANET EARTH IN PERIL, EVERY DAY NEEDS TO BE EARTH DAY

MCKEON: PLANET EARTH IN PERIL, EVERY DAY NEEDS TO BE EARTH DAY

Assembly Environment Chair Calls for Unified Global Action

(TRENTON) - Assemblyman John F. McKeon today announced that planet Earth is in peril and every day needs to be Earth Day.

On the eve of the 39th anniversary of the first Earth Day, McKeon said humanity was in a fight against time to save Earth and must live every day in an environmentally conscious manner, actively engaging in a united global effort to fight destructive forces that continue to threaten our planet and human existence as we know it.

"Every day needs to be Earth Day," said McKeon. "For centuries, we have ravaged our planet's natural resources, destroyed its forests and marine life, polluted its oceans and rivers, built over rich agricultural farmland with little regard to the environmental degradation or permanent damage of Earth's precious natural resources," said McKeon. "We have exasperated the impact on our planet's resources already strained by the population explosion of nearly three billion in less than 40 years."

World population nearly doubled from 3.7 billion in 1970, the first Earth Day, to the current figure of 6.6 billion. Compare this to the population figure of 1.65 billion in 1900.

McKeon warned that the greatest threat today to our planet was from climate change.

"The dangerous escalation of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide in our Earth's stratospheres is causing global warming to have a catastrophic impact on our ecological balance and natural systems, including the melting of glaciers and the rising of sea levels," McKeon said.  "And when we upset the balance of nature, we face the consequences of nature's fury."

If climate change is not arrested, scientists predict devastating consequences. Sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica. Droughts and famines are expected to rise. By 2050, the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in the summer and more than a million species worldwide could be driven to extinction.

Experts point to the impact of global warming over the past decades. There has been a near doubling of category 4 and 5 hurricanes in the last 30 years. Over the past ten years, the flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled. Hundreds of species of animals are already responding to global warming, moving closer to the poles.

"We face the reality of the continued degradation of our planet and the survival of our humanity as we know it. We must act now and act together to save our planet. One day at a time. As one people - Earth's children. I see this as our greatest moral challenge and responsibility," McKeon concluded.

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Contact:
Chairman McKeon
GitaBajaj (973) 224-4851