Every April, Earth Day floods our feeds with nature shots, recycled quotes and eco-guilt-driven posts. Does this actually help climate action? The short answer is no. As much as we want these posts to create meaningful change, they don’t. Instead, they create a false sense of contribution, allowing inaction to masquerade as environmentalism.
However, let’s be clear: creating these Earth Day posts is good in theory. Online posts and Earth Day itself are symbolic, as they offer us a moment of reflection for our part in environmentalism, and a chance to demonstrate that people “care.” But the effects of climate change have not gone down. Climate-related issues like global warming, deforestation, ocean pollution and air pollution have only gotten worse.
Despite decades of Earth Day campaigns, the state of the planet is still spiraling, and people are more likely to turn to an Instagram post than plant a tree. Celebrating Earth Day doesn’t make you automatically part of the solution. In fact, celebrating Earth Day could be a way of convincing and disillusioning people that they’ve done enough.
California, the world leader on climate action, only had 743 people volunteer in 12 state parks for Earth Day last year. This number comes from a state with 39 million people. In totality, only 0.0019% of the Californian population showed support on Earth Day.
The non-profit organization, Earth Day, reports that only 1 billion people engage in volunteerism of any kind, such as tree planting or trash pickup, on Earth Day. While social media is a great way of showing that people “care” about our Earth, it ultimately isn’t a solution and is just performative.
Before we burden the average person with the responsibility of Earth Day activism, let’s examine the political issues at hand. The current Republican Party has made climate denialism a key part of its platform, but it wasn’t always that way. Under President Richard Nixon in the 1970s, the Grand Old Party (GOP) helped pass major environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). His administration even supported the first Earth Day in 1970.
Today, however, the GOP rejects climate science, blocks climate action and endorses climate denialism — rejecting the existence of global warming, spreading misinformation and preventing policies that would reduce emissions.
President Trump, a leader in the climate denialism movement, has issued sweeping executive orders to block state-level environmental laws. The Pew Research Center reports that only 23 percent of Republicans believe climate change is a major threat. When those in influential offices are calling climate change a hoax, there is only so much traction climate action days like Earth Day can create.
During my time at California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG), a nonpartisan organization, I participated in petitioning the Biden administration to create an executive order to ban logging in our oldest growth forest. Our goal was to have that executive order signed in response to the collected signatures before the Republican Party settled into office, because the likelihood of unfavorable environmental action for the next four years would be high.
Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful in getting the executive order signed, even though we had secured the signatures needed. This just demonstrates that getting climate action even in a liberal presidency is hard and nearly impossible under the Republican Party. Social media does allow for more efficient and widespread collective action, but it gets complicated when so much of what we see is performative. It’s hard to tell what’s driving real change and what’s just signaling, but dismissing it entirely means overlooking one of the few tools we have to build momentum fast.
The Trump administration attempted to override California’s climate legislation by using the Congressional Review Act to revoke the state’s Clean Air Waiver, which allows for more environmental regulations. These moves don’t just stall progress — they threaten to undo years of work by scientists, communities and even the students who pick up litter on Earth Day. It’s like trying to patch a dam with a band-aid while someone is actively blowing up holes through the wall.
So, where does that leave the people who do show up? Are they wasting their time? Absolutely not.
There is a critical difference between the few who do participate on a deeper level than those who simply post their Earth Day activism on social media. The few people who are engaging in Earth Day activities, such as volunteering, organizing and educating, are not using Earth Day as an excuse to avoid their responsibilities. They are using it as a checkpoint. A day to reflect on what they already do: recycle, compost, ride their bike and vote with the future of the Earth’s climate in mind. They’re not in it for the photo op. The people who participate in Earth Day events are usually already living low-waste, sustainable lives.
Those who participate in Earth Day and engage with sustainable practices already care. They’re in the fight. That’s where Earth Day falls short — it’s not pulling in the people who need convincing that climate change is real. It is creating a comfortable echo chamber where everyone agrees climate change is bad, but the conversation remains immobile.
Earth Day doesn’t spur people into action. At least, not most people. It acts more like a performance — a symbolic day that permits people to feel like they did something good for the planet without actually changing anything about their behavior long-term. It’s like going to the gym once a year and wondering why you don’t have abs.
However, Earth Day isn’t useless — it is misused. If we want the day to mean something, we need to stop treating it like a green-themed holiday and start treating it like a deadline. Earth Day should be a reminder that we are running out of time. The wake-up call that only works if people actually get out of bed.
Liking a post about sea turtles won’t save them, and planting one tree does not fix a burning, over-logged forest. The planet does not need another Earth Day; it needs us to show up every day.
