It's earth day again. The day when we are all supposed to think about the environment - the good, the bad and the rapidly melting. We think about trees and owls, rivers and salmon, icebergs and polar bears. But what about people?

There is more to life on earth than climate change. Living on earth means living in peace with other people whose basic life needs are met.

Even if all of the resolutions that we make on Earth Day were to magically come true and heal our planet, we would still be left with massive problems that we need to address.

• A recent report sponsored by America's Promise Alliance found that almost half of all public high school students in the US' fifty largest cities fail to graduate.
• According to a report by the non-profit Commonwealth Fund, The United States ranks last among 19 industrialized nations on health outcomes, quality and efficiency.
• The Canada Council For the Arts recently revealed that the US was 13th out of 13 industrialized countries when it came to funding for arts.
• A recent study on homelessness in the US by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, states that approximately 3.5 million people, 1.35 million of them children, are likely to experience homelessness in a given year.

The grassroots movement that gave us earth Day has slowly gotten us to use fewer disposable water bottles, drive more efficient cars, bring reusable bags to the store with us, get many toxic chemicals out of our food and homes. That's great. We are all paying attention now, and making countless changes to reverse manmade climate change.

Imagine what that same energy could look like when applied to failing public education. Or the healthcare crisis. Or homelessness, addiction, gang violence, blighted neighborhoods...

It would look like Americans volunteering more now than ever before, which they are. In fact, the combined force of billions of donated hours has created a silent economy that in 2007 generated $158 billion in economic benefit to communities nationwide.

What's more, in April, Congress voted to send the The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act to President Obama's desk, to be signed into law. The legislation will more than triple the number of volunteers officially serving in this country from 75,000 to 250,000 and establish four new service corps: a Clean Energy Corps; an Education Corps; a Healthy Futures Corps; and a Veterans Service Corps.

I can't help but look at this toxic environment of economic collapse and unraveled social fabric as a manmade environmental crisis that is at least as great as the one we made in our natural environment.

But I look at the power of grassroots movements, like the one that gave us Earth Day, and I know we can fix it. Each of us, in our own way. I look at a president who not only believes we can save ourselves, but encourages us to do so. I think that we can fix this mess, if we choose to. And I think that we can, and will, choose to.

So, this Earth Day, let's think about saving Polar bears, but also kids who's schools are failing them. Let's clean up our oceans, but also our neighborhoods. Let's get toxins out of our food supply, but let's get food on people's tables.

Let's remember that there's more to life on earth than just a healthy planet, we need healthy people too.