I was a junior in high school back in 1970, the very first Earth Day. I was excited. Our school had an assembly on that first Earth Day, and I remember the massive banner posted on one wall of the auditorium “If you aren’t part of the solution, you’re part of the pollution.”
That first Earth Day, the outgrowth of comments from Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, was billed as a “teach-in,” a strategy common at the time. At my school, there were school projects focused on the environment across several parts of the curriculum. My good friend Corky and I put together an 8 mm movie (most folks will barely recall that movies were on film in those days, not little diskettes!) showing what we thought were the most lamentable pieces of environmental damage.
Our somewhat naïve footage showed garbage burning at the dump (no landfills in those days), eroded riverbanks, paper cups and other trash floating in puddles. I can’t recall what our “soundtrack” was, though I think Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi,” (pave paradise and put up a parking lot” was a likely candidate. We got an “A.”
There was no recycling that I was aware of in 1970, though the rush to disposable everything was less rampant. There were appliances you could actually affordably repair. Paper was the only option at the grocery store (though I know some trees were suffering for it). We grew a lot of our own food, just because we could.
Incredibly, a gallon of gas cost $.36. We were just entering the digital age with the invention of LCDs (liquid crystal diodes), personal computing and email—all having a huge impact on home technology.
Over the years, I planted multiple trees gleaned from McDonald’s giveaways on Earth Day. I’ve learned some things about nature, about energy and about how the economy and the environment are inextricably linked.
So when I feel overwhelmed by the news of radioactive leaks in Japan, the damage done to marine life in the Gulf in the wake of BP’s oil crisis, melting ice caps and Congress wanting to dump the Environmental Protection Agency—I have to go back to what I can control.
I can use the marvelous mixed recyclables bin I received free from the city of Des Moines. I can combine errands and shop as close to home as possible. I can take my cloth bags into the store with me. I can skip the use of lawn chemicals and use compost on my vegetable garden.
When I remember the hope and energy I possessed on that very first Earth Day, I am grateful to be a product of that very first educational effort. And I can be a part of the solution, in however small a measure, today.
Comments