week of 4/17/02
 
 
 


The Naturalist's Corner
By Don Hendershot

Quick, grab some beads, your best tie-dyed T-shirt and some Birkenstocks and join all your environmental wacko, tree hugging, ex-hippie, granola friends for the Earth Day celebration nearest you.

After all, that’s what Earth Day’s all about right? Saving water by not showering; saving fuel by being too stoned to drive, saving the world by munching tofu burgers and saving energy by being too lazy to work. Or is it?

In a way it saddens me that Earth Day was not the immaculate conception of the flower children of the 1960s. The fact that it was a calculated and concentrated effort on behalf of Washington politicians to bring environmental concern to the forefront of the national political agenda kind of tarnishes the grassroots image.

Earth Day was the brainchild of former Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Gaylord Nelson. In the senator’s own words from a past issue of American Heritage Magazine: “Actually the idea for Earth Day evolved over a period of seven years starting in 1962. For several years, it had been troubling me that the state of our environment was simply a non-issue in the politics of the country.”

Nelson’s idea was to bring the environment into the political limelight by convincing President John F. Kennedy to go on a national conservation tour. Kennedy toured 11 states in September 1963. For many reasons, not the least of which was Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, environmental issues did not make it to the forefront of American politics.

Nelson, however, did not give up.

“I still hoped for some idea that would thrust the environment into the political mainstream. Six years would pass before the idea that became Earth Day occurred to me while on a conservation speaking tour out West in the summer of 1969.”

The senator’s brainstorm was fueled by the Vietnam War protests across the country. “At the time, anti-Vietnam War demonstrations called ‘teach-ins’ had spread to college campuses all across the nation. Suddenly the idea occurred to me — why not organize a huge grassroots protest over what was happening to our environment?”

At a conference in Seattle in September 1969, Nelson announced that in the spring of 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration in support of the environment and invited everyone to participate. Nelson had struck a nerve with anti-war demonstrators and infused an already mobile and connected constituency with an environmental fervor.

Adding fire to the fuel, the Cuyahoga River in Cleaveland, Ohio, caught fire in 1969 due to chemical runoff from all the industries along its shore. Congress signed the National Environmental Policy Act into law in January 1970. It was estimated that 20 million Americans across the country participated in that inaugural Earth Day in 1970.

Other environmental policies and acts followed on the heels of NEPA and Earth Day 1970. Some of them include the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act.

Earth Day observations and attendance waned after the initial legislative success of the 1970s. However, the spirit of Earth Day did not. Groups such as Greenpeace, The Nature Conservancy, the Sierra Club and the National Audubon Society picked up the banner and began tireless work on behalf of the environment. In 1990 more than 200 million people worldwide celebrated Earth Day. Earth Day 2000 saw half a million people gather at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Today more than 3,500 organizations in 184 countries help coordinate Earth Day events.

Of course, to many, Earth Day celebrants are still the lazy, the unkempt, the ill-informed and the “antis” whose sole purpose is to destroy capitalism and the “American Way.” Those in the vanguard opposing Earth Day and environmental regulation will tell you today’s world is too complicated for “touchy-feely” solutions.

In a sense they are right. Before the 20th century there were no environmental concerns. When people began to express those concerns they ran head-on into millennia of established protocol and a paradigm that had no place for their thinking. There are complicated and convoluted networks, procedures and customs which must be navigated to further environmental concerns.

But don’t forget that the essence of Earth Day is simple. The planet we live on is one of finite natural resources and limited space. These are being consumed and used up at an ever-increasing pace. Continued population growth and exploitive consumption will not, ever, lead to a reversal of those trends. Only education, perseverance and a change in paradigm will.

So don your beads and tie-dyes and sandals on April 22 and join in celebrating the earth. But on April 23 put your suits and ties back on, roll up your sleeves and get back to work in the corporate board rooms and political bodies where those complicated decisions must be made that can eventually bring about a change in paradigm.

(Don Hendershot can be reached at don@smokymountainnews.com)