Earth Day!!!

Today, April 22, 2008, we celebrate Earth Day in the United States. The first time I remember someone mentioning Earth Day was back in the third grade. I recall the excitement and the many projects we got to do. They taught us about recycling and turning off lights when we left rooms, but my favorite was all the fun art work we got to do instead of our usual work. We drew pictures of the earth and made “presentation” boards about the environment. Of course, there's not much for a third grader to present on, but it was all in good fun. Now that I'm older I have to ask myself, “What is Earth Day?”

The idea of Earth Day took a seven year journey to a magnificent creation. Starting in 1962, Washington Senator, Gaylord Nelson, began contemplating and implementing methods, as he put it, “of putting the environment into the political 'limelight' one and for all.” (earthday.envirolink.org/history.html)

He originally coordinated, with the Attorney General Robert Kennedy, a Presidential five day eleven state conservation tour in September 1963. Although the tour was not successful in generating any political environmental discussion, it was the “germ of the idea the ultimately flowered into Earth Day” (Nelson) The Senator continued to speak, across the country, on environmental issues, still hopping for some idea that could put the environment into the political mainstream. The idea finally came during the summer of 1969, a particularly crucial time in the history of this nation. Nelson noticed the power of the university student driven anti-Vietnam War demonstrations taking place across the country. These demonstrations, called “teach-ins” were huge grassroots organizations uniting under a common cause. He saw the opportunity to tap into this already oiled machine. “...the idea occurred to me- why not organize a huge grassroots protest over what was happening to our environment?” (Nelson) The idea was better then he could have ever imagined.

At a conference in Seattle in September 1969, he announced plans for the spring of 1970 of a nationwide demonstration on behalf of the environment open to everyone. On Sunday, November 30, 1969, The New York Times carried an article by Gladwin Hill reporting on the astonishing proliferation of environmental events:

"Rising concern about the environmental crisis is sweeping the nation's campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam...a national day of observance of environmental problems...is being planned for next spring...when a nationwide environmental 'teach-in'...coordinated from the office of Senator Gaylord Nelson is planned...."

The planning for the April 22^nd event culminated in a nationwide demonstration beyond anyones wildest expectations. Nelson puts it best himself:

“Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.”

So what difference does it make? Here we are almost forty years later, in the midst of global climate change. What impact, if any, has Earth Day had? The original goal of Earth Day was to move Environmental issues into the national political mainstream. I'd say it has been very successful in that regard. Environment is no longer a word more apt to be spoken in a spelling bee then in the home or office. Even the Bush administration, not one largely recognized for their environmentally friendly policies, touts a laundry list of success on the environmental front. “The rend of annual loss of wetlands has been reversed...” (www.earthday.gov/fedations.htm) Improved air quality has continued to be a success with reductions of all six principal air pollutants: carbon monoxide, ground-level ozone, lead, nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter, and sulfur dioxide. The draw back being that in the reduction of these pollutants we've increased our automobile carbon dioxide emissions.

Here in our corner of the world there have already been a full weekend of events. On Saturday there was the annual Eco Fest on Chico State campus. There was lots of music and dancing, low impact refreshments, and several booths on environmentally friendly practices, including farming and fishing. There was large exhibit of poster boards from several university organizations across the country and their efforts to reduce their ecological footprint on the earth. There was also a large event at our local Bidwell Park where teams of people restored and cleaned up various parts of our beautiful and very large park. There was trail repair, recreation sight clean up, water quality monitoring training, field restoration, and Big Chico Creek Watershed invasive plant removal. Two campus dormitories, Lassen and Shasta, competed last week to see who can use the least amount of energy in a week. There has also been a “Turn Off You TV Bash” movement sponsored by Campus Involvement and Awareness. There are also several environmental initiatives on our Associate Student Body ballots this year. Two, in particular, are requiring all campus vendors to provide at least one purified water tap in store to supplement the use of bottled water. The AS will have a taste test challenge today, to see if you can taste the difference between bottled and tap water.

While movements such as the ones I just mentioned might have come about on their own. The impact of Earth Day on politics and universities can not be under-stated. Earth Day is now a global event with international dates on the spring and fall equinox for the northern and southern hemispheres. Earth Day has made a difference, and with the contributions of people like us, it will continue to be a self made movement.