Earth Day 2024 was this past Monday. In my Jackson Elementary school classroom on that first Earth Day, we sang songs, wrote poetry, and I imagine did a few other things which I have long since forgotten. There was a lot going on that day I knew nothing about until I did a bit of digging. Using my good buddy, YouTube, I learned a bit of history of the first Earth Day, 54 years ago.
On that day, Walter Cronkite of CBS News reported that citizen groups in 2,000 communities and student groups from 2,000 colleges and 10,000 secondary schools from across the United States took part in rallies, marches, and protests from New York to Los Angeles.
At Boston’s Logan Airport, college students, some in gas masks, others in symbolic coffins, protested Transworld Airlines’ order for the Supersonic Transport, which, they said, would produce sonic booms and air pollution, and would threaten the climate by releasing tons of water vapor into the stratosphere. That protest ended with a few arrests when the protesters didn’t leave the premises fast enough when ordered by police.
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Highschoolers participated in a bicycle rally to the state capitol in Denver, the 17th most polluted city in the United States at the time, to show there was a cleaner way to travel than by motorized vehicle. The students also picked up litter around the capitol grounds.
In some cities, like mine in Green Bay, school children sang songs about pollution. In others, school groups planted trees. There were speeches by actors and professors and legislators.
In Washington DC, where the Potomac River was so polluted that a “Polluted Water, No Fishing, Fish Contaminated” sign was posted along the river in front of the Jefferson Memorial, a protest of about 2,000 grew to 10,000 mostly college-aged men and women, by evening. This protest, like many around the country, included a rock band of which Bill Downs of ABC News quipped, “…obviously, of all the environmental plagues they were protesting, the least of these was noise pollution.”
Protests can get messy, sometimes, and they can also spur change. A video released in 2022 by the American Museum of Natural History reported the following:
On that first Earth Day, the Clean Air Amendment to the Clean Air Act of 1963 was signed by President Nixon. The amendment, now commonly referred to as the Clean Air Act, set standards for our air, and regulated what comes out of chimneys, cars, and airplanes. As a result of this Act, air pollutants have decreased 78 percent, new cars, trucks, and buses are 99 percent cleaner. Because of the switch to unleaded gas, lead levels in children’s blood are down 95 percent.
In 1973 the Endangered Species Act was signed into law by President Richard Nixon. As a result of measures taken since then, formerly endangered Yellowstone grizzly bears, grey whales, and the grand bald eagles we now see daily overhead have made a comeback.
In 1987, every country in the world joined the Montreal Protocol. The act banned CFC’s (chlorofluorocarbons- chemicals containing chlorine, fluorine, and carbon), which when released into the atmosphere, deplete our Ozone layer. As a result, the Ozone layer has stabilized, and by 2050, is projected to have returned to 1980 levels.
In 2015 the Paris Agreement to cut CO2 emissions to limit warming was signed by 197 countries. Steps outlined in the agreement include switching to renewables such as solar and wind power, conserving and restoring grasslands and forests, and protecting ocean and coastal environments. The United States pulled out of the Paris Agreement under the Trump administration, then re-entered under President Biden.
And just this year, New York City published a rule allowing the use of cargo bikes in place of traffic-blocking delivery trucks. The cargo bikes are propelled by the rider with help from an electric battery. Riders can use the bike lanes which the city plans to widen. The cargo bikes don’t produce emissions, and as there is less congestion in the bike lanes, they can get to where they are going much faster.
Technologies have grown, making our lives easier, so solutions to their inevitable side effects have grown right along with them. While our legislators are busy dealing with the big stuff, we can work on the little stuff in our personal factories we call home.
To my list of reusing, repurposing, recycling, and composting, I recently added one more. I had a pile of cards I’d been given at Christmas and other holidays over the years, too pretty to throw away but didn’t have a use for. I found a new home for them.
St. Jude’s Ranch for Children accepts fronts of all greeting cards (except American Greetings, Disney, and Hallmark due to copyright restrictions). They also accept new cards with envelopes. The children they serve repurpose these cards, making their own cards to sell. Send to: St. Jude’s Ranch for Children, Recycled Card Program, 100 St. Jude Street, Boulder City, NV 89005.