It's Earth Day again this week. And how many people really care? Unless you've just sat through some television program explaining the science related to global warming, or how large-scale agri-business has destroyed some of our nation's ecosystems with runoff, you're not likely to think about the Earth that much today. More important concerns on 2009's Earth Day will likely be your job and job security; your kids and their schools; and your home, with its mortgage, roof, and the lawn that needs to be mown.

But Earth Day is important. It's a day that's about stepping back from the urge to just have breakfast and drive off to work, and to contemplate our planet and what we're doing to it.

And though some may wish to deny this, there are fairly dramatic costs attached to poor environmental management. One example: we've effectively lost the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem, which once produced mountains of shellfish for markets up and down the East Coast. This loss occurred as a result of the aforementioned runoff from agribusiness, a consequence of a nation hungry for inexpensive and widely-available poultry products. In classical economics terminology, the death of the Chesapeake is an "externality." Because the loss of the living ecosystem was not something that could ever be measured easily in cold hard cash, it was simply ignored, cut out of the equations that rule day-to-day economic life.

This kind of situation is an example of what our species has done all over the world, with shortsighted pursuits of our immediate goals.

On the personal level, this kind of shortsightedness can be found in, say, the way we avoid dealing with an old roof, or a dying automobile. There are so many other things to spend our money on. But then the day comes when there's water pouring down the walls from an ice-dam, or we're stuck at the side of the road with a dead car.

The desire for short term gains affects local planning decision making as well. A perfect example is how the Town of Wawarsing Planning Board waived the idea of further environmental review of the proposed Walmart. Instead of opting to study the many long-term environmental concerns that such a project raises, the planning board did what so many of us do: live for the day and let tomorrow take care of itself. It's one thing to act this way on a personal level, but quite another for a planning board, whose mission is planning, to do so. And the concerns are many — such as the establishment of yet another car-dependent shopping area, the resulting increase in pressure to develop adjacent open spaces, and the further assault on Ellenville's viability as a walk-able, centralized downtown, which is a much more environmentally benign model for commerce.

Earth Day comes only once a year, but we live with the consequences of our decisions every day. The costs of the planning board's shortsightedness will not be borne by Walmart, or even, in the near future, by the members of the planning board. Ultimately, they will be borne by the children of Wawarsing, who will wonder, 'just how in the world did we get into this mess?' Perhaps, during this week in which Earth Day falls, we ought to take a moment and consider how our decisions today affect those who will live here tomorrow.

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