Is there reason to celebrate when Earth is heating up too fast? | Opinion

David Hanselmann is a former chief of the Divisions of Soil and Water Resources and of Recycling at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and former lecturer and Environmental Professionals Network founder at OSU’s School of Environment and Natural Resources.  Now retired, he resides in Lewis Center.

The Ohio Farm Bureau Federation for many years has declared on billboards that “Every Day is Earth Day to a Farmer."

Today, many people and organizations are joining them by celebrating the 53rd Earth Day. 

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Across my 35-year career at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources I worked with farmers in each of Ohio’s 88 counties, and can say how true that sentiment is, with relatively few exceptions.

Over those years an important question kept arising: Should I focus on what I can do personally to help our environment, or should I advocate for policy, law, and institutional changes?

The answer is “yes."

What can you do to help Mother Earth in Columbus?

Our individual actions, from recycling, to lowering our thermostat a bit in winter and raising it in summer, to reducing fossil fuel use, to protecting backyard habitat really add up when practiced by thousands and millions of us. Equally important is joining others in your community for things like tree planting and stream cleanups.

For more than a decade Green Columbus has planned more Earth Day activities with more volunteers across our region than any other city in the U.S – over 250,000 hours of green service since 2008. Soon its web will have volunteer 100 worksites; over 70,000 trees will be planted. What a great way to be engaged with friends, family, and colleagues.

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There’s a major side benefit to participating in the projects organized by the many groups like Green Columbus – which by the way has just one employee, Shelly Douglas.

Most of them count on support from foundations and businesses. Green Columbus is aided by the Columbus Foundation Green Funds. If groups couldn’t document citizen and community participation, outside support might be at risk. Remember, far more than our environment benefits – our communities, families, and businesses become stronger and healthier.

We’ll see you on Earth Day. But what else, you ask?

What else can you do to help Mother Earth in Columbus?

Changes to local, state, and federal policies, rules, and laws are also critical. For example, put simply, to reduce use of fossil fuels we must install more solar and wind energy sources. We all hope for other energy breakthroughs, but time is not on our side.

Earth is simply heating up too fast.

So while local and state officials need to listen to residents, most projects should be approved, with conditions. Fortunately, state agencies are drafting guidelines to protect long term productivity of soils for crops, drainage, and erosion that officials can use.

The 2022 federal Inflation Reduction Act provides incentives for conversions to heat pumps, electric vehicles and more. For the agriculture community the act supports conservation practices that sequester carbon in cropland soils. These practices have even come to have a name – Climate Smart Agriculture, championed here by Plain City farmer Fred Yoder.

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What greater good could there be than letting the next generation see that we care.

And there are a significant roles the business community is playing yet need to increase. Like employee-driven Green Teams that are improving internal practices.

And watching for green business opportunities. Over ten years ago when I also directed Ohio’s recycling programs, Cincinnati-based Rumpke, a nationally recognized leader in recycling, realized that Ohio’s insulation manufacturers needed more recycled glass.

Rumpke worked with the communities they serve then built a multi-million-dollar glass sorting and processing facility in Dayton. And now a $90 million recycling center in Columbus. Danone North America contracts with farmers across Ohio and the U.S. It is even a Certified B Corporation, committed to creation of economic and social value, while nurturing natural ecosystems through sustainable regenerative agriculture, soil health, biodiversity, and water quality, with its farmers.

So, we desperately need all our residents and businesses to practice sound environmental behaviors – for both people and planet.

And we need better local, state, and federal policies to spur better, quicker solutions for climate change, biodiversity threats, indeed the whole range of ecosystem services.

For people and planet. Let’s have even more to celebrate on future Earth Days. 

David Hanselmann is a former chief of the Divisions of Soil and Water Resources and of Recycling at the Ohio Department of Natural Resource sand former lecturer and Environmental Professionals Network founder at OSU’s School of Environment and Natural Resources.  Now retired, he resides in Lewis Center.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: What can you do to help the Earth, environment in Columbus, Ohio