Happy Earth Day

Environmental Cartoon from 1938 issue of the Rotarian

Sometimes I get a kick out of what we think of as new. Take Earth Day as an example. The Earth Day Network marks April 22, 1970 as the beginning of the movement, stating "Earth Day 1970 capitalized on the emerging consciousness, channeling the energy of the anti-war protest movement and putting environmental concerns front and center." It all sounds good, I mean more and more of us don't actually remember the 70's so we're prone to take the word of 'official' sources to tell us what happened and to read that information as historic rather than the opinion (informed or otherwise) it really is. The problem happens when the facts get in the way. 

June 1948 saw the first piece of legislation to lay down federal regulation of water quality, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, passed by Congress.  The years between 1948 and 1970 would see the government playing a larger role, imposing regulations to control automotive emissions, protect endangered species, and Environmental Impact Statements for Federal legislation. But even the landmark FWPCA wasn’t the beginning of awareness of the value and importance of nature. 

As early as 1864 California was setting aside park land in the Yosemite Valley. This action came, in part, as a response to Frederick Law Olmstead’s suppressed manifesto calling for greater protection of Yosemite and the growing realization that America’s wild spaces were an asset worth protecting. In 1872 Ulysses S. Grant signed a bill creating Yellowstone as the country’s first national park and by 1890 Yosemite would join Yellowstone in lands set aside as protected natural spaces. 

Surely, none of these facts change the dire state of the planet we’re facing today. To survive, we must give up the convenient ignorance that makes the damage we do on a daily basis acceptable. By becoming more educated about the environment and how we can improve it and that not only applies to understanding how our habits and choices impact the planet, it also means understanding our whole history. It means avoiding seeing the generations which preceded ours as all bad or all good and merely seeing them as all human. 

Happy Earth Day to everyone. Go out and help the planet, do a good deed, and learn something that will change your life and the lives of all those who will come after you. It’s the least you can do.