According to Gary Wynn Yohe, Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, Emeritus at Wesleyan University, as the world prepares to commemorate the 55th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22, the theme “Our Power, Our Planet” highlights the growing urgency of collective action in the face of escalating environmental and political challenges.
This year’s Earth Day calls on individuals, communities, and organizations across the globe to elevate grassroots actions that promote sustainability and resilience. Coordinated efforts will focus on local solutions to a global crisis that is now considered one of the most pressing threats to human life in recorded history.
“We are no longer dealing with future hypotheticals,” said Prof. Yohe. “Climate change is already reshaping our planet and affecting human health, security, and survival in profound ways.”
In 2025, record-breaking global temperatures have already intensified climate-related disasters — from catastrophic wildfires and unprecedented floods to prolonged droughts and extreme weather events. Scientists warn that the accelerating climate crisis presents an existential threat, not in the abstract sense of human extinction, but in the very real and statistical likelihood that individuals around the world will face fatal consequences due to climate-related phenomena.
At the same time, efforts to combat climate change have encountered formidable headwinds from geopolitical instability. Analysts and civil society leaders have raised alarms about rising authoritarianism in the United States and its impact on climate science, democratic institutions, and environmental policy. Observers note that the new presidential administration’s actions have undermined key protections and rolled back decades of progress on climate and democratic engagement.
Despite these daunting obstacles, Earth Day organizers and environmental advocates remain steadfast in their mission. While optimism may have dimmed for some, many still draw strength from hope — a concept famously captured by Czech statesman Václav Havel, who defined hope not as the expectation of a positive outcome, but as the conviction that meaningful action is worthwhile, regardless of results:
“Hope is definitely NOT the same as optimism. It’s not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that [doing] something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. It is hope, above all, that gives us strength to live and to continually try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now. In the face of this absurdity, life is too precious a thing to permit its devaluation by living pointlessly, emptily, without meaning, without love, and, finally, without hope.”
This year’s Earth Day underscores the importance of empowering change-makers within communities, companies, and institutions. These intermediate actors — outside the highest political echelons — have the capacity to implement practical, innovative, and locally impactful environmental solutions.
Grassroots support for these leaders and initiatives can help bypass federal gridlock and reinvigorate climate action from the ground up. Earth Day 2025 offers a platform for connecting these efforts and inspiring others to join in.
“As we reflect on where we’ve been since 1970, the message is clear,” said Prof. Yohe. “When it comes to climate risk, humanity faces three choices: abate, adapt, or suffer. Our job now is to do everything in our power to advance the first two and reduce the third.”
About Professor Gary Yohe
Gary Wynn Yohe is the Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, Emeritus, at Wesleyan University. He is a researcher on the economics of climate change and integrated assessment modeling and was a senior member of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that was awarded a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. Yohe was also a member of the New York City Panel on Climate Change and the standing Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change of the National Academy of Sciences. He was a standing member of the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change and was a vice-chair of the Third National Climate Assessment. He earned his PhD from Yale University and co-authored (with renowned University of Pennsylvania economist, the late Edwin Mansfield) the seminal textbook "Microeconomics: Theory and Applications,” through its eleventh edition.
