Published: April 17, 2008 11:12 am         

Littering unacceptable

The annual observation of Earth Day is Tuesday, but clearly many people still don’t understand its significance.

Former presidential candidate Al Gore, who won both an Academy Award and a Nobel Peace Prize for his movie on the Earth’s climate crisis, ``An Inconvenient Truth’’ was recently profiled on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” Gore’s environmental mission is continuing, and he is still spreading his message, one person and one country at a time. ``The struggle to save the global environment is in one way much more difficult than the struggle to vanquish Hitler, for this time the war is with ourselves,’’ Gore said recently. ``We are the enemy, just as we have only ourselves as allies. In a war such as this, then, what is victory and how will we recognize it?’’

One way we may recognize it locally is when the rampant littering that occurs in our area comes to an end.

Take a drive or a walk on almost any area road, paying close attention to the sides of the road. What you will see is an endless display of litter ranging from bottles of bleach to McDonald’s bags to beer and soda cans. Pretty much anything and everything people might have in their cars, they seem to think is O.K. to simply toss out the window when they’re done with it.

We fail to understand why so many people feel it is O.K to do this. Is it laziness, ignorance, indifference or a combination of all three? Maybe education is the answer. Milford Central School is hosting the annual Environmental Education Network of Otsego County’s Earth Festival 2008 on Saturday at the high school. Earth Festival is an opportunity for the residents of the region to learn about conservation efforts taking place within their communities, as well as ways people can take actions to improve their environment, according to a press release. The festival, sponsored by the Wildlife Learning Company and OCCA and Otsego 2000, will run from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and will feature activities, exhibits, presentations, entertainment, food and a silent auction. The festival is just one event scheduled by the Environmental Education Network of Otsego County, which can be found at eeonc.org.

We encourage parents to take their children to the Earth Festival on Saturday.

Old habits die hard and if the cycle of littering and environmental degradation is going to stop, it may have to be the younger generation that does it.