As we get ready to celebrate Earth Day, this may be a good time to look back at the roots of this commemorative day which is now celebrated worldwide on April 22nd. Earth Day started in the United States and is now celebrated in 193 countries, but where did the spark for protecting the Earth come from?
Did it start with naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (yes, the same person that our Humboldt Parkway is named after) and his observations that everything in nature is part of an interconnected web? No, Earth Day does not start here, despite his international renown (including personal friendships with Thomas Jefferson and Simon Bolivar) and numerous scientific and geographic accomplishments.
Did it start with author Henry David Thoreau’s days spent at Walden Pond. No, Earth Day did not start here. His musings in Walden and Other Writings brought a greater appreciation of nature, but did not start a movement to protect it. As seen by the industrialization of the world at the time, the Earth was there for the taking, using the very old Biblical reading of “dominion over the earth” to exploit its resources.
Did it start with Charles Darwin and his On the Origin of Species? No, Earth Day did not start here. Despite the scientific proof that all species evolved from less complex forms, this did not start a transformative effort to protect the life-giving environment for man and beast.
Did it start with Sierra Club founder John Muir? No, Earth Day did not start here. Despite his ability to save Yosemite National Park for posterity and being friends with Theodore Roosevelt, the leading conservationist politician in American history, his legacy in the environmental movement took nearly 60 years to reach outside of California.
Did it start with Aldo Leopold and his A Sand County Almanac? No, Earth Day did not start here. Even though his works are influential in defining environmental ethics and was a leading advocate for wilderness (not parkland) preservation, his calls for maintaining biodiversity still reach out to environmentalists today but failed to reach the mainstream of his day.
Surely, it must have started with Rachel Carson’s seminal work Silent Spring? No, even with the wake-up call of her accessible writing was there a unified cry to do anything for the planet as a whole. In fact, it took a concerted effort by the scientific community to fight the vicious, misogynistic attacks she suffered by the chemical industry to clear her name and validate her work.
But something happened in the seven and a half years between the release of Silent Spring and the first Earth Day in 1970. It wasn’t the burning of the Buffalo or Cuyahoga Rivers. At the time, communities accepted that these and many other waterways were a dumping ground for manufacturers. Maybe even worse from today’s perspective, air pollution was accepted as the smell of prosperity. It wasn’t the acts of President Lyndon Johnson, who can rightfully claim to being the environmental president, laying the groundwork for future environmental protections through acts like the Wilderness Act, nor his wife Lady Bird, who’s advocacy as First Lady to Beautify America’s highways can still be seen today in every wildflower patch left unmown along our interstates.
What happened during this time was a groundswell of activism in various sectors, unmatched in the history of this country. The 1960s included the Civil Rights Movement, the beginnings of the Feminist Movement, the Hippie Movement (bring their message of peace and love), and the anti-war movement. In hindsight, government turned a blind eye to most of their messages. But in 1969, an off-shore oil drilling platform had a blow out off the coast of Santa Barbara (just minutes away from President Richard Nixon’s home in San Clemente) spilling an estimated 100,000 barrels, and many of these activists began to look at the environment as another issue that their government failed to protect.
Later that year, Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson planted the seeds for “an environmental teach-in” which took root across the country. The name didn’t take root but once replaced, the newly named Earth Day movement grew even larger, just not in the way the organizers thought it would. They thought that college students would be their base, but draft-aged students were preoccupied with the anti-war movement and did not respond to the environmental call to arms. They found that their base was college educated women with children and teachers at the K-12 level who were willing to act to make the world a better place for their kids.
Armed with the support of 20 million people who joined peaceful demonstrations across the country in favor of environmental reform, major environmental protections like the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and many others were passed. In addition, the Environmental Protection Agency was founded during the Nixon presidency.
Over the years, use of the message of Earth Day has been co-opted by business, and the activism of the early days has calmed down to the Earth Day cleanup or going to an event that has a softer Earth Day message of “saving Mother Earth.” Earth Day is now an easy-going annual event that has forgotten its roots – taking action and drawing attention to the catastrophic state of our planet.
Earth Day is now an easy-going annual event that has forgotten its roots – taking action and drawing attention to the catastrophic state of our planet.
The signs of climate change are hitting close to home, with more severe storms coming through Western New York every year. Just over the past twelve months, we experienced a smoke-tinged summer from Canadian wildfires and an unusual ice-free winter on Lake Erie that are signals of increased warming. Scientists sees the signs of the current catastrophic state of our planet, but it is much more difficult for the public to see. The message of today’s counterparts to Silent Spring are lost in the overload of bad news, but should be as much a calling card to action as it was in 1970.
We may see that 1.5°C/2.7°F temperature threshold quoted by scientists and politicians permanently crossed in 2024. Five years ago, at the World Economic Forum, activist Greta Thunberg summed up the status of our planet. “Our house is on fire. I am here to say, our house is on fire.” The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gives us six years to act on climate change before the damage is irreversible.
There is a nascent movement to “Reclaim Earth Day” and return to the activist movement that Earth Day was built upon.
This is why there is a nascent movement to “Reclaim Earth Day” and return to the activist movement that Earth Day was built upon. This is not the time to rest on our laurels. We should not consider the successes of the 1970s as anything more than stepping stones to the ultimate goal. Our youth have good reason to be mad at us – they are the ones who will have to live in the world altered by rising sea levels, erratic precipitation, and temperatures that will continue to rise.
And it is all because our businesses and governments have spent the last few decades “pledging” to take action on carbon emissions, plastic reduction, etc. But no one is held accountable to these pledges or goals, and rarely are they met. This is why it is important this year for New York to take the next steps to implement the climate mandates of the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. Governments around the world need to see how to make these sustainable and economically positive environmental changes in a short time span. It will take bills like the NY Home Energy Affordable Transition Act (NY HEAT S2019-A/A4592-A) and the Just Energy Transition Act (S2935-C/A4866-C) that can be used as stepping stones to implement the upcoming 2030 mandates of a 40% economy-wide greenhouse gas emission reduction and 70% electricity from renewable energy sources. Every day we waste in taking action makes it that much harder to fix our 200+ years legacy of releasing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere.
Every day we waste in taking action makes it that much harder to fix our 200+ years legacy of releasing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere.
We need to Reclaim Earth Day and we need your action. Take five minutes to let your elected officials, or companies you purchase from, that it is important to you to protect the environment. If you think your actions won’t make a difference, consider that you are reading this and I was in your shoes not so long ago (I hope I am making a difference). Even if your message isn’t perfect, politicians tend to act on issues that they hear about from their constituents, and getting them to act in a positive way is the goal.
Last thing to remember about Earth Day: It’s not about saving the planet. The planet has been here far longer than humans have and will survive our passing. As we saw by the first Earth Day activists, it is about our children and grandchildren. We need to maintain a world in which they can live in. They deserve the “Goldilocks” conditions that we grew up in (not too hot, not too cold). By preserving that, it also ensures that the flora and fauna that inhabit the world with us today will also be around for future generations.
Addendum: The theme of the 2024 Earth Day is Planet vs Plastics. Earthday.org is calling for the end of plastics for the sake of human and planetary health, demanding a 60% reduction in the production of ALL plastics by 2040. New York is currently considering the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act which would make manufacturers responsible for the full lifespan costs of their products and has provisions to encourage the reduction of plastic in containers.
Lead image: Photo by John Cameron