(Lake Meade is resurging after record low levels. Image from The Daily Torch).
“Earth Day” is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. It was first held on April 22, 1970, and now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally by an estimated one billion people in more than 193 countries. The official theme for 2024 is “Planet vs. Plastics” for the 55th anniversary of the global event on the only Earth we will ever know.
Back in 1969, some of us were looking forward to graduating from High School. There were some big issues in play, some of them intensely personal, like the Draft obligation to potentially carry a rifle in a place called Vietnam.
The was something else at least as intimate as war, and it was called out that year at the UNESCO Conference in San Francisco, once a noted city on the US West Coast. The conferees proposed designating a day to honor the Earth and the concept of peace. You can see how these two issues- there were more- played to a common theme most folks supported: a cleaner environment and a time of peace in which to enjoy it.
The first of these days honoring Mother Earth was observed on March 21, 1970. For some that was the conclusion of the first year of college and a year of remarkable freedom. UN Secretary U Thant signed off on a proclamation honoring the concept and the day. A month later, Gaylord Nelson, one of Wisconsin’s US Senator proposed the idea to hold a nationwide environmental teach-in on April 22, 1970.
He is now known as the Founder of Earth Day, an annual event to celebrate an unproven theory about the destruction of the civilization that the Senator, and others, assured was for sure going to destroy the Earth in only a decade or two. An example is the image of Lake Meade which starts this outing. There had been some concern, since the water-level in the lake behind the Hoover Dam had dropped more than 45-feet in just three years (2020-2022). Experts informed us the lake could approach ‘dead pool’ levels in the near future by ending the electricity generation from the dam to nearby population centers.
It turns out the event horizon was a little short, since whatever natural cycle had caused the drop suddenly ceased and reversed. That is why most predictions of doom are at least far enough away for careers to be secured but not so far off as to not be a factor in daily agenda planning.
The system learns. In 1970, that meant the return of the glaciers and another Ice Age. That was one of the strong points supporting Earth Day. It was remarkably flexible. The arch enemy was, of course, Mankind. The specific devil spawn was a trace element (“4 Parts per Million!”) in our atmosphere that could be accused of all sorts of nefarious activity since none can actually be proven.
A youthful activist, one filled with energy and enthusiasm named Denis Hayes was hired to coordinate national activities. His first act was to re-name the event as “Earth Day.” He was successful in harnessing the idea of “saving the planet” (which even the Salts generally support) to a political movement (which is makes us suspicious).
At the time, we noticed the real problems that accompanied unbridled industrial development and disposal of consequent waste. The original idea had been for a national event that would support constructive things. Instead of a purely American Earth Day, more than 20 million people poured out on the streets, and the first Earth Day remains the largest single-day protest in human history.
Not bad, and it was a train that has continued to run with enthusiasm for more than a half century. Any enterprise that successful has to cope with change, and it has. The Ice Age theme only lasted a few years, although it resonated with people in the Upper Midwest. There was a mild uptick in the haphazard record that was chosen as The Global Temperature, so the narrative changed to “Global Warming.”
There are reports from the deserts of Saudi Arabia that there is more greenery around than there used to be. But while the words supporting the “we are about to boil!” meme continue to be uttered, the title for them was abridged to the simpler “Climate Change,” since it does and can be used for either hotter or colder. That is how weather and religion have always got along.
On this 22nd of April, we offer a tip of the topper to Senator Nelson, a politician who knew how to use Science, or at least “Sciency sounding Things” to achieve a sort of immortality. Rest in peace, Senator!
Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com