Happy Earth Day, 2023
One thing people say about having a day (or even month) to celebrate x is that it tends to cause people not to care about it the rest of the time. Who knows if that’s true but you definitely don’t hear people making that argument about Memorial Day. In any case, let’s assume that having a day on the calendar in which we officially celebrate the Earth is no objection to it. But why celebrate Earth? There could be religious reasons (because god made it, or is it), there could be aesthetic reasons (because it is AWEsome and wondrous), there could be anthropocentrically ecological reasons (because of how it supports human life—these reasons are arguably not ethical reasons), and there could be deeply ecological reasons (the whole earth—not just some part of it—is intrinsically valuable). These reasons can overlap, of course. One thing that people sometimes say is that “this is the only Earth we have.” This might be true but it depends on what is meant by “Earth”