Every year on April 22nd, the world celebrates Earth Day — a civic observance dedicated to raising awareness about the many environmental problems the planet is facing. First held in 1970, Earth Day has been used to shine a light on a variety of issues from pesticide use and the need for organic food, to clean air and water, and recycling. It’s one of the biggest events of the sort, observed by hundreds of millions of people.
Sadly, Earth Day is not enough to stop the planet from its steady downward spiral. The species extinction rates on the planet are higher than they’ve been in times that have led to mass-extinction events. In the United States, the Insurance Information Institute reported that 4.5 million homes are in danger of damage from wildfires, which are now burning up to ten million acres per year. These are more than just a couple of indicators, there are hundreds of them pointing toward the need to do a lot more in the 364 days that aren’t official Earth Days.
It’s a situation that calls for all hands to be on the deck and Pam Agullo has never hesitated to lend hers to environmental causes. Both in her capacity as the President of the Board of Directors of the El Paso Zoological Society, and as an internet-savvy public figure with a prominent platform through her Instagram account, Pam Agullo has been very active in raising awareness about the whole gamut of environmental issues.
“Every Day Is Earth Day is a campaign I launched to resemble the various ‘days’ in the calendar devoted to specific issues,” Pam explains. “The point was that the one Earth Day we have isn’t enough and that we need every day to be Earth Day because of the gravity of climate change issues and just how pressing the need to address this threat is.”
One of the key issues Pam would like to bring a brighter light to are endangered species and the real threat that human activities pose to biodiversity and animal survival. “The more conservative estimates put out by the World Wildlife Foundation put the species extinction rate at 0.01% per year, which is a thousand times more than the regular extinction rate,” she explains. “To put that into perspective, of the 1.6 million species we’ve identified so far, at least 160 are going extinct every year. It’s estimated that the number of species in the world is at least five times that, so we’re more likely looking at 900 species dying out per year, minimum.”
While there’s not a single thing that’ll be the cure-all, or the magic bullet, to put an end to the environmental damage we’re causing, the idea behind Every Day is Earth Day is that small changes count, especially if people stick with them over time. “It’s about living in a more sustainable fashion, mindful of our place on the planet and the impact we’re having,” Pam Agullo says. “It’s also about learning all the different ways our everyday decisions affect the world around us, and making sure we have our priorities straight. We don’t have a spare planet we can hop onto when we ruin this one. We need to take care of Earth every day.”