Earth Day Past, Earth Day Present, Earth Day Futures
Earth Day Past
Earth Day was born out of need, one that continues through to this day. Though there was a much underlying kindling of environmental angst and advocacy, the match that lit the fire that burns until today was the Santa Barbara oil spill, that killed a counted close to 10,000 animals (seafaring birds and marine mammals) in its immediate aftermath and untold vast quantities more that were unable to be measured. It still ranks as the third largest oil spill in US history, fifty years later.¹
While a great amount of local activists were involved in imagining Earth Day (Selma Rubin, Arturo Sandoval, and many others) much of the credit goes to Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D-WI) who upon seeing the devastation of the Santa barbara oil spill embarked upon a quest to make it a large national event. He recruited other senators, representatives, environmental activists, and community leaders into a makeshift board and hired a scrappy young organizer, Denis Hayes. He was just 25, and had a history as an anti-war activist radical, who also knew how to work within institutions like Stanford and Harvard where he attended school.
Working tirelessly for close to a year, Dennis Hayes and a collective team approaching one hundred people worked to organize on campuses and in communities around the nation.
This culminated in one of the largest ever series of demonstrations across the US, with an estimated 20 million Americans demonstrating across the US on April 22nd, 1970.² While that is a truly astounding number, it is made even more so by the fact that that at the time of the first Earth Day, the total US population had just crested 200 million - meaning 1 out of 10 Americans, from wailing babies to raging grannies (or at least their predecessors) was involved in demonstrations to protect the environment. In places like New York City and Washington D.C. — it effectively shut them economically and physically down.
And this type of mass movement led to real reform, or at least some outgrowths of it did. While Earth Day ignited a mass consciousness around how all environmental issues are connected to differing degrees, the actual event was quickly lost in the news as Nixon invaded Cambodia and four Kent State students were shot within the same week.³ But the organizing structure that Denis Hayes, Sen. Gaylord Nelson, and countless (and equally) important volunteers and activists built continued to ignite and spread through the year. The activists chose to run elections against twelve of the worst politicians on the environment that fall of 1970 — and unseated 7 of them, showing most politicians that environmentalism was no longer confined to “picking up litter .. and dancing around mulberry bushes” as Denis Hayes himself put it. This and many other actions also helped create the push for the amendments to previous laws that became known as the CWA (Clean Water Act), Clean Air Act, and new laws like FIFRA (Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act) that profoundly restructured the American economy to a less directly polluting form.
Nixon - worried about having to compete with more progressive Republicans like John Lindsay, George Romney, and Ted McCloskey (all involved to differing degrees with Earth Day) in perhaps future elections — was guided by a close advisor John Ehrlichman to create the EPA in response.⁴
Through both of these examples we can see how leading on climate and environment can force change in our greatest halls of power, and our smallest municipalities. Both continuations of the movement itself
Earth Day Present
In the intervening years, Earth Day has become the annual event we now celebrate with a tradition of expansion to cap every decade (excluding the 1980's). In 1990, 2000, and 2010 aggressive new goals were set and the reach of Earth Day expanded around the world.
Earth Day — to some degree, has lost some of its radical edge. Whereas in the past it was marked with protests, sit-ins and their cousin teach-ins, and various other forms of protest it is now “closer to a tradeshow”.⁵
While it has transitioned its focus to climate over the intervening years, it has not been as great site of organizing for the climate crisis. It has become a day we celebrate on for what has happened in the past, and applaud our forebearers foresight — while gazing around the literal and metaphorical fires that are coming and those that have been smoldering for the last fifty years — growing over time.
“It has become a day we celebrate on for what has happened in the past, and applaud our forebearers foresight — while gazing around the literal and metaphorical fires that are coming and those that have been smoldering for the last fifty years — growing over time.”
We had to adopt a different form for this Earth Day to help prevent the transmittance of COVID, itself an example of how unmitigated development into wild areas and a lack of respect for the first law of ecology — “all things are connected” — can lead to ruin. For more on this, check out my coworker Mary’s article here.
Earth Day Futures
In many indigenous cultures, it has been long known that proper wildfire maintenance can help nourish the environment, and protect humans that live among it.⁶ This has become obvious in light of both the Australian fires visualized above, and the Californian ones in the US as well.
How do we light the fire of democratic protest that nourishes the earth and protects all humans?
What could Earth Day be? How should it evolve? What is its strengths and weaknesses? These are all pertinent questions during this time of climate crisis and COVID. There are a wide variety of potential policies we could institute, at a variety of different levels of governance - like the Clean Water Act of the past. But the question is less around what we need to, but about how we get there.
What type of organizing networks do we need? Where are the levers of control we need to reach? The answer is again complex, but is continually being sought out by a variety of organizations. Climate Action NC is one of those organizations, and we are working with a variety of other groups to try and figure out what the coalition that helps secure this generation’s FIFRA. We would love to hear your ideas on how to create new winning coalitions for the environment — and how to help create the new Earth Day needed to help us tackle the climate crisis.
If you would like to know more about how to get involved with further education and advocacy contact Connor Kippe at ckippelcv@gmail.com! You can also follow Climate Action NC at @ ClimateActionNC on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter!
References
¹Largest Oil Spills Affecting U.S. Waters Since 1969 | response.restoration.noaa.gov. (n.d.). Retrieved April 23, 2020, from https://response.restoration.noaa.gov/oil-and-chemical-spills/oil-spills/largest-oil-spills-affecting-us-waters-1969.html
²How Earth Day moved environmentalism front and center — Harvard Gazette. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/04/how-earth-day-moved-environmentalism-front-and-center/
³Denis Hayes, one of Earth Day’s founders 50 years ago, reflects — Harvard Gazette. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/04/denis-hayes-one-of-earth-days-founders-50-years-ago-reflects/
⁴Richard Nixon and the Rise of American Environmentalism | Science History Institute. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/richard-nixon-and-the-rise-of-american-environmentalism
⁵The History of Earth Day: From Radical Roots to Elementary School Classrooms | Teen Vogue. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://www.teenvogue.com/story/history-of-earth-day
⁶With wildfires on the rise, indigenous fire management is poised to make a comeback | Grist. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2020, from https://grist.org/justice/with-wildfires-on-the-rise-indigenous-fire-management-is-poised-to-make-a-comeback/
