In case you hadn’t noticed, I am not American, I am English. However, that is all the more reason for me to fly the Ecology Flag, which draws design inspiration from the iconic US Stars and Stripes.
Withdrawal of the Trump administration from the Paris Agreement means America is one of only three nations (along with Nicaragua and Syria) and by far the largest not signed up to the international climate commitment to tackle human-made global warming.
Climate change, though, does not respect national or state borders – it is a universal, Planet Earth phenomenon and truly global in its scope and scale.
In many ways, incentivising climate action would be made much simpler if the degree of global warming did actually vary regionally and locally in strict proportion to respective direct (and indirect) impacts. Imagine how different the response might be, if particular countries and parts of the world with a larger carbon footprint experienced greater adverse effects in relative terms than those living more within their planetary means?
Sadly, it is almost the case that the opposite scenario holds true – those nations least at fault still bear much of the burden created by unsustainable industrialisation and consumerism running rampant for decades elsewhere.
In reality, climate change is indiscriminate and fundamentally unfair.
So, whilst I shall not be demanding anyone ‘Pledge Allegiance’ or ‘Salute’, I do ask you please to Fly the Flag, not least in support of all those states, cities, organisations, businesses, communities, families and individuals in the US who are working hard and living well in accordance with the principles of sustainability (and perhaps still hoping to bring about a change in Government policy).
Fly the Flag: We are all America now; and America is all of us.
History of the Ecology Flag:
According to Wikipedia, Look magazine incorporated the Ecology Symbol into an image of a flag in their April 21, 1970 issue. It widely popularised the theta symbol, associated with the Greek word thanatos (death) in light of human threats to the environment. The flag design was based on that of the United States and has 13 stripes alternating green and white, plus the Ecology Symbol in the upper left quadrant (canton) in the place of stars.
The Ecology Symbol (Theta):
The Ecology Symbol was originally created by cartoonist and artist Ron Cobb – who had worked on everything from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, to an album cover for rock band Jefferson Airplane. First published in 1969, it takes the letters ‘e‘ and ‘o‘ from the words ‘environment’ and ‘organism, then superimposes them on one another to form a shape reminiscent of the Greek letter θ (Theta).
