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The Columbian on how for sake of the planet, treat every day as Earth Day:

Saturday is Earth Day, an annual designation that promotes a partnership for the planet. While several local events are scheduled and while millions of people across the globe will participate in activities, the idea of Earth Day is a misnomer. Concern for the planet and sustainability should guide our actions every day, not just once a year.

Earth Day was first launched in 1970. Denis Hayes, coordinator of that initial Earth Day, grew up in Camas, Washington, and graduated from Clark College before attending Stanford University. Since helping to launch the observance which was the brainchild of Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson Hayes has been a leader in the environmental movement. In 1999, Time magazine lauded him as Hero of the Planet.

Hayes path in environmentalism demonstrates the fits and starts that have affected the movement. During the Jimmy Carter administration, he headed the federal governments solar energy research effort; the programs budget was slashed whenRonald Reaganentered theWhite House.

In 1993, Hayes said: I think that the greatest crime against the environment will be the decision early on in the Reagan years to shut down the renewable energy development program to the extent that they could. Research that was being done on solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and other renewable, sustainable, safe, benign, resilient, decentralized energy sources came to a halt.

Government policy can seem out of reach to average citizens, and protecting the environment can appear intractable. ButEarth Dayis a reminder that we all can play a role in developing sustainable habits.

As theNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationstresses, Protecting our planet begins with you. The administrations website offers 10 easy recommendations for helping the environment, including Reduce, reuse, recycle, conserve water and plant a tree.

Perhaps most important is the recommendation to become educated about environmental issues: When you further your own education, you can help others understand the importance and value of our natural resources.

Such education is particularly important these days, with climate change influencing policy decisions and fueling political discord. The latest report from theUnited NationsIntergovernmental Panelon Climate Change warns that the world is close to a dangerous threshold, with the burning of fossil fuels contributing to rising temperatures. The IPCC chair said, The choices we make now and in the next few years will reverberate around the world for hundreds, even thousands, of years.

An increase in frequency and intensity of wildfires, shrinking glaciers and rising sea levels in our state make clear the local impact of climate change. A diminishingColorado Riverin theSouthwest United Statesmakes clear the national and global impact. The river provides irrigation for much of the nations food production, and it is drying up.

Earth Day offers an opportunity to ponder and recognize how environmental issues are intertwined and how our actions can have a broad influence.

Whether or not you are able to participate inEarth Dayevents, we offer a gentle reminder: Every day should beEarth Day.

Former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who served Illinois 11th Congressional District and later the 16th from 2011 to early this year, is one of the Republican Partys most significant truth tellers. Kinzinger is now a political commentator. In his blistering farewell address to Congress in December, Kinzinger said: Where Republicans once believed that limited government meant lower taxes and more autonomy, today, limited government means inciting violence against government officials.

On Monday night, Kinzinger spoke in Chicago at a meeting organized by The Joyce Foundation. In a session moderated by a former Tribune reporter, White House official and Democratic strategist, David Axelrod, the former congressman spoke alongside Tim Heaphy, the chief counsel and lead investigator for the Jan. 6 House committee.

This was a left-leaning audience, receptive to sharp criticism of the Republican right and far friendlier to Kinzinger than many members of his own party. But something Kinzinger said at the Arts Club caught our attention after the conversation turned to recent school shootings.

Second Amendment people, Kinzinger said, should be on the front line of gun control.

In essence, Kinzinger was saying, the people who are interested in guns, and most likely to own them, actually know far more about what works and what does not in the matter of gun control than those who have no such knowledge. And as experts on guns, he said, they are thus morally obligated to use that expertise to solve what is clearly a crisis, given all the recent examples of emotionally troubled people acquiring powerful weaponry and using them to take innocent lives, often of children.

Many of them already know this, he implied, at least deep down, and are possibly just waiting to be asked in the right way.

Therefore, rather than seeing fervent supporters of the Second Amendment as the opposition to be defeated, he suggested, those who want to see sensible regulations on gun ownership, such as background checks, age restrictions and red flag laws, should see Second Amendment people as potential experts and allies. They know guns better than those who merely despise them.

Kinzinger was engaged in realpolitik here, noting that the constitutional protection for personal ownership of guns is unlikely to go away in our lifetimes. Better, then, to find common ground when it comes to the kinds of reform for which weve advocated here often.

Kinzinger is not the only person who has suggested that Americans try harder to find common ground in the interests of common-sense solutions. At a recent meeting in Austin, Texas, organized by the American Press Institute, a young nonprofit called The Flip Side spoke of its mission to help bridge the gap between liberals and conservatives, telling assembled opinion journalists from major newspapers that the use of less partisan language and tonality has proved to be a far more effective generator of meaningful common-sense change than rhetorical demonization.

We could not agree more. And gun control is not the only issue to which that applies, but its surely the biggest emergency.

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Views from the nations press - Longmont Times-Call