Poster of the Week – An Open Letter to the People of a Dying Planet

Today is Earth Day. This poster was made 51 years ago, for the first Earth Day. Please read it. Please heed it. Its warnings could have been made today, but the situation now is more dire.

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Poster Text:

An Open Letter to the People of a Dying Planet.

For years, experts have pleaded with you to conserve your resources.

Ecologists have warned that your fumes and bulldozers and wastes and chemicals have already tipped the balance of nature against you.

And still, the vast majority of you can't, or won't comprehend.

Don't you realize that most of your food is hazardous to your health? That you eat the pesticides they spray on crops, you eat the drugs they feed your cattle, you eat the chemicals they use to preserve and flavor your food.

Don't you realize that most of your "disposables," such as plastic containers, aluminum cans and wax cartons, are just as dangerous as auto exhaust? (A city incinerator just changes them into poisonous smoke.)

Don't you realize that an entire ocean can be polluted? (Navigators actually include great seas of sewage in their charts.)

That nature actually needs the millions of animals you slaughter each year for clothing? (Remember, your sealskin coat was once a seal.)

That rampant and unlimited consumption eventually consumes you?

On April 22nd, thousands of students will be holding an environmental teach-in at their schools and colleges.

Their purpose is to discuss the ecological facts of death. And suggest alternatives.

Whether you're a student or not, you can still commemorate this day by taking a long look at what you're doing to destroy yourself. At what you wear, what you eat, what you waste and what you put up with. Only your own living and buying habits will reclaim this planet.

Only your letters and votes will force politicians to place life over lobbies.

Only your buying power will convince industry that a dead planet is bad for business.

Set aside April 22 as the day you start to save yourself. There may be no time but the present.