Earth Day 2026 has come and passed, and no one even batted an eye. There were no big school celebrations, no new environmental acts and there weren’t even ads from corporations claiming that they care about the environment. Humanity is forgetting about our home, in preference for war, money and partisan politics.
Saving the environment should be a no brainer. As much as it has been thrown around and has really lost all meaning, Earth is our only home, and we need to do all that we can to preserve it so that we can continue to live.
Unfortunately, this is a debate between party lines. Mainstream Republicans claim that climate change is a hoax and that fixing it would be socialism, and mainstream Democrats tack non-climate related policies to bills that would help fix the climate.
While the Democrats have their own problems with the way they pass their bills, they do have a great view on the environment: it needs to be saved.
Republicans should agree with that sentiment, and it is insane that they don’t because so many reasons for saving the environment can be linked to Republican values.
For example, investing in new, cleaner, energy sources will help fuel the economy and create jobs for manufacturing and maintaining these new sources of energy. In addition, new technologies could be used to help split the US from reliance on other countries like China and those in the Middle East.
Additionally, the Republican Party has a history of passing legislation to support nature, like Theodore Roosevelt, who was instrumental in the creation of national parks and was later known as the “Conservation President.”
North Carolina specifically has a lot of beautiful nature that is being destroyed by deforestation and urbanization. For example, North Carolina is home to part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which is being threatened by logging and policy changes around the conservation of parks in the US.
Urbanization in North Carolina is on the rise, even in Fuquay-Varina, as the newest rezoning map turns a lot of natural space into neighborhoods. This trend of urbanization has led to North Carolina losing 27% of its forests since the year 2000.
Overall, saving the environment needs to stop being such a partisan issue, with all Americans coming together to keep America naturally beautiful.
