Earth Day Doesn’t Really Matter Anymore

For 40 years now, Americans have commemorated Earth Day, a holiday that began as one of the largest and most influential grassroots civil actions in U.S. history. Unfortunately, according to Penn State environmental historian Adam Rome, the Earth Days of today are altogether different celebrations from the one that first took place in 1970. Back then, around 20 million people—or 1 in 10 Americans—participated in Earth Day events, from demonstrations and speeches to public service and celebration. It was a national phenomenon and the catalyst for major political change. Nowadays, the fight against climate change has its own momentum, and Earth Day 2010 will most likely not be a turning point in environmental politics.

When two major environmental disasters hit America in 1969, former Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D-Wisc.), a conservationist governor turned senator, saw opportunity in the tragedies. In June of that year, oil dumps into the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio caught fire, causing $50,000 in damage as well as a national sensation. It was the tenth time the river had burned in the past hundred years. Then, in August, an oil rig off the coast of Santa Barbara leaked 3 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean. The slick spread over 800 square miles and covered more than 30 miles of coastline, killing hundreds of seals, dolphins, and birds.

Nelson and 25-year-old Denis Hayes, a Harvard law student with extensive experience in civil action, began planning for Earth Day just weeks after the Santa Barbara spill. Nelson was inspired by the teach-ins—educational forums to discuss major political issues—that became common during the Vietnam War, and he believed college students were vital to activating the movement. In fact, Nelson suggested April 22 for Earth Day because it was after many college spring breaks and before finals. The weather would be warm enough for students to demonstrate outdoors, and Wednesday was thought to be the least busy for students involved with clubs and sports.

Nelson and Hayes’ brainchild became a huge success. “Without anyone actually trying, the same way weeds spread without sowing them, Earth Day spread to a lot of places,” Rome says.

To give working men and women more flexibility, communities held a full week of Earth Day events. Churches and synagogues held special congregations on Sunday and Saturday.

Through the 1960s, the environmental movement was building among liberals, scientists, and old conservation groups like the Sierra Club and Audubon Society. But it wasn’t until Earth Day that these disparate interests came together. “They’re not separate streams, but they’re not one stream either,” says Rome, “They come together on some things, but they don’t really come together until Earth Day.”

In the 10 years after establishing it, Congress passed a series of environmental laws including both the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, and President Richard Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency.

Even more remarkable was the lack of partisan politics. In the wake of Earth Day, Democrats and Republicans were jockeying for leadership on environmental matters. A Democratic Congress and a Republican president passed the Clean Air Act and other environmental laws in 1970, and Washington continued its environmental record for the rest of the decade. Even conservative stalwarts Nixon and then-California Gov. Ronald Regan competed with Democrats for the title of environmental champion, says Rome.

“At the time, people thought, ‘who wouldn’t care about the environment?’” Rome says. “It unites everybody.”

Fast forward several decades and the environment remains a highly political issue—albeit in a much different way. Climate scientists—aware of the dangers of climate change—are now attacked by skeptics and politicians. Energy groups, like the American Petroleum Institute and Exxon Mobile, are running “energy tax” ads and supporting deniers to prevent new energy and climate laws from passing. And the Senate has struggled to produce a comprehensive but politically popular energy and climate bill.

The Earth Day Network, the international organization founded by Denis Hayes, estimates that more than a billion people will participate in Earth Day events this year, in 190 countries around the world. Hayes group alone has planned a full week of events in Washington, D.C., culminating with a rally featuring speakers like James Cameron, EPA chief Lisa Jackson, and Reverend Jesse Jackson, and featuring music by Sting and The Roots.

Nevertheless, with a country divided and the issues becoming more complex, Earth Day has lost a large chunk of its grassroots political punch. Rome now equates Earth Day with events like Martin Luther King Jr. Day. He says it’s become more of a memorial than a day of political action.

“I doubt that anything that happens this Earth Day will change anything fundamentally,” Rome says.

In the past week or so, the media has diligently reported on the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. But that’s nothing compared to 1970, when major newspapers and magazines released a “blitzkrieg” of mega-issues on the environment for months, according to Rome. “Earth Day is [no longer] really a mobilization of people at the grassroots,” he says. “It’s not a way of empowering people and it’s unlikely to have a real powerful, long-lasting effect. The goals are more amorphous than they were in 1970. We’re in a different place.”

With their original intent gone, Rome hopes Earth Days in the future will be seen as benchmarks for how far we have come. Unfortunately, after a decade of disregard and negligence, Earth Day 2010 seems to find us having come not very far at all.

Tristan Fowler is a staff writer for Campus Progress.

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