Celebrate Earth Day!
Each year, Earth Day—April 22—marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970.
The height of counterculture in the United States, 1970 brought the death of Jimi Hendrix, the last Beatles album, and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” War raged in Vietnam and students nationwide overwhelmingly opposed it.
At the time, Americans were running leaded gas in massive V8 sedans. Industry belched smoke and sludge with little fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. Our school classes in the LA Basin were regularly kept indoors because of the pain of breathing eye stinging smog.
Although mainstream America largely remained oblivious to environmental concerns, the stage had been set for change by the publication of Rachel Carson’s New York Times bestseller Silent Spring in 1962. The book represented a watershed moment, selling more than 500,000 copies in 24 countries, and began to raise public awareness and concern for living organisms, the environment, and links between pollution and public health.
After witnessing the ravages of the massive 1969 oil spill off Santa Barbara, Earth Day 1970 was imagined, planned, and promoted by classmate and student body president Denis Hayes to give voice to an emerging environmental consciousness by channeling the energy of the anti-war protest movement to put environmental concerns on the front page.
Denis Hayes, with the support of Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin and then Republican Congressman Pete McCloskey of California, built a national staff of 85 to promote events across the land. April 22, falling between Spring Break and Final Exams, was selected as the date of the first Earth Day.
On April 22,1970, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values.
Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, city folk and farmers, tycoons and labor leaders. By the end of that year, the first Earth Day had led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts.
As 1990 approached, a group of environmental leaders asked Denis Hayes to organize another big campaign. This time, Earth Day went global, mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting environmental issues onto the world stage. Earth Day 1990 gave a huge boost to recycling efforts worldwide and helped pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
As the millennium approached, Denis Hayes spearheaded yet another campaign, this time focused on global warming and a push for clean energy. With 5,000 environmental groups in a record 184 countries reaching out to hundreds of millions of people, Earth Day 2000 combined the big-picture feistiness of the first Earth Day with the international grassroots activism of Earth Day 1990.
Earth Day 2000 used the power of the Internet to organize activists. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, DC for a First Amendment Rally. Earth Day 2000 sent world leaders the loud and clear message that citizens around the world wanted quick and decisive action on global warming and clean energy.
Much like the early days of 1970, Earth Day 2016 comes at a time of great challenge for the environmental community. Climate change deniers, well-funded oil lobbyists, reticent politicians, a distracted public, and a divided environmental community all contribute to a narrative of cynicism versus activism. Despite these challenges, Earth Day has prevailed and remains a relevant, powerful focal point, celebrated by more than a billion people in 192 countries, the largest secular observance in the world.
The fight for a clean environment continues with increasing urgency, as the effects of climate change and pollution become more manifest every day. As sailors skilled at turning the wind into forward motion, and who regularly see the effect of pollution on the health of the world's seas, we have a responsibility to educate, whenever possible, the desirability of leaving a clean wake.
