Earth Day
Inspired by anti-war "teach-ins" and the activist culture of the late 1960s, United States Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin organized the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, to raise awareness of environmental issues and elevate the state of the environment into mainstream political discourse. Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring (1962), examined why there were increasing levels of smog in the nation's cities, and focused attention on environmental disasters such as the Santa Barbara oil spill (1969) and the fire on Cleveland's Cuyahoga River due to oil and chemical pollution (1969), and gave rise to local groups of concerned citizens and activists. Enlightening photographs of the Earth taken by astronauts underscored the fact that we inhabit a finite system, small in comparison with the vastness of the solar system, and changed the way people visualized the planet. On that first Earth Day, an estimated 20 million people participated in peaceful demonstrations, lectures, and celebrations all across the country—10,000 grade schools and high schools, 2,000 colleges, and 1,000 communities were involved. Extensive media coverage of the events succeeded in alerting people to the deteriorating condition of the environment and increased the influence of environmental groups on government and industry. For many, Earth Day 1970 radically altered the image of nature and how society should treat it, and marked the beginning of the modern environmental movement.
The dramatic rise in citizen awareness after Earth Day made pollution a major news story. Programs on pollution appeared on television, newspapers hired environmental reporters, advertisements stressed the ecological qualities of products, and books and magazines addressed the protection of nature. Within months of the original Earth Day, the Environmental Protection Agency was created. The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and several other important environmental laws were passed in the early 1970s. Politicians spoke out on ecological issues in their campaigns and speeches. Companies that violated pollution laws were taken to court, and membership in many environmental groups doubled and tripled. The construction of nuclear power plants in the United States halted in 1978. Many experienced activists, trained in the anti-war, civil rights, and women's movements, used civil disobedience to combat polluters. Subsequent Earth Days continued to put pressure on government and industry to act responsibly toward the environment.
Along with some environmental organizations, Earth Day lost steam during the pro-environmental Carter administration, as people perceived that ecological problems were being addressed. Some conservation efforts also prompted an angry backlash by conservative groups. During the 1980s, the Reagan and Bush administrations systematically dismantled many environmental laws. When Reagan named the imprudent and insensitive James Watt to the position of Secretary of the Interior, however, environmental organizations became rejuvenized and their membership rolls increased. In 1989, the editors of Time magazine abandoned their tradition of featuring a man or woman of the year in favor of featuring "The Endangered Planet." In reaction to such environmental concerns as global warming and the depletion of the ozone layer, and such eco-disasters as Bhopal, Chernobyl, and the Exxon Valdez oil spill, organizers of Earth Day intensified their efforts on the twentieth anniversary in 1990.
In 1990, Earth Day turned global. On April 22, Earth Day united more people concerned about a single cause than any other event in the history of the world—139 nations participated. The New York Times reported that 200 million people took part in the largest grass-roots demonstration in history. More than one million people gathered in Central Park to hear speakers and entertainers, and more than 200,000 people assembled in front of the United States Capitol to listen to music and speeches.
The environmental movement is one of the most successful and enduring reform movements of the twentieth century. A majority of Americans now believe that the poor quality of the environment is one of our most serious national problems. Millions of families take for granted the policy of reduce, reuse, and recycle. While all environmental accomplishments since 1970 cannot be directly attributed to Earth Day, it has succeeded in transforming a fairly specialized interest into a pervasive, popular one, and has made ecological consciousness part of the American value system.
Further Reading:
Cahn, Robert, and Patricia Cahn. "Did Earth Day Change the World?" Environment. September, 1990, 16-42.
Devall, Bill. "Twenty-Five Years since Earth Day." Humboldt Journal of Social Relations. Vol. 21, No.1, 1995, 15-34.
Dunlap, Riley, and Angela Mertig. "The Evolution of the U.S. Environmental Movement from 1970 to 1990: An Overview." Society and Natural Resources. Vol. 4, No. 3, 209-18.
Gilbert, Bil. "Earth Day plus 20, and Counting." Smithsonian. April, 1990, 46-52.
Hayes, Denis. "Earth Day 1990: Threshold of the Green Decade." World Policy Journal. Vol. 7, No. 2, 1990, 289-304.
This is the complete article, containing 770 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page).
