SATURDAY IS EARTH DAY. I thought it would be and easy topic. It isn’t.
We know more now about how the substances that make our lives comfortable also destroy our habitat and the food, fuel and fabric that sustain us. None of us need another lecture on how people began to realize more than 53 years ago who’s in charge of the poisons that threaten us and who profits most. We can only wonder why the authorities we trusted did not alert us that our indulgent lives have made living on this planet more iffy than we thought.
I missed the first Earth Day. In New York City it was a march through Mid-Town Manhattan to Union Square, April 22, 1970. At Union Square a large crowd would gather. Big crowds were common back then. But how big could it be? And the city was a little more edgy than usual at the time.
A month before Earth Day, in Greenwich Village the house next to friends of ours suddenly blew up and crumbled. Weatherman, a domestic terrorist group, was using the house that collapsed as a bomb factory. The blast killed three members of the group that day. Others escaped.
So as the day for the Earth Day demonstration approached, I gladly agreed to lend my video camera to a younger colleague and let him learn about crowds and how they aren’t always as big as the organizers claim.
When he returned later that day and we reviewed his videotapes, we saw plenty of mistakes, but nothing could conceal the scale of the event. A reference book on 20th century headlines described the demonstration as, “Millions march for ecology.”
It seemed as if in an instant Earth Day had burst into being and with it the agenda for cleaning up our national mess. It blossomed without much credit given to the peaceful efforts of the Civil Rights and Antiwar movements. But that’s not how the ecology movement evolved into the environmental movement and how we’ve now reached a phase some call Climate Consciousness. And soon enough that clock will run out, leading to amazing levels of national and international cooperation… or an age of despair.
So how should we mark the 53rd annual observance of peaceful demonstrations. What are you planning to do? There’s a menu of options if you look you. Check your local library. Don’t see what you’re looking for? Be sure to ask.
Check with your town clerk, your Planning Board and Town Board. For the most part, their records are public. You can use the library’s computer to check for Earth Day activities.
Towns and the County have Climate Smart Committees. Check in on your committee if you can’t find yours, ask the official who stands behind the counter.
This is not a game. Learn more about reducing your carbon footprint.
Do everything you can. Just don’t do nothing.
My 20 century headline book reminded about a few other headlines that appeared during the month of April 1970 when Earth Day turned out millions.
By the end of that month then-President Nixon had ordered U.S. troops in South Vietnam to invade Cambodia, widening the war in Southeast Asia. And the book reported at the time that the Beatles were “breaking up.”
Change can come when times are grim. Let’s use the choices we have while we still have them.