The Resurrection of Earth Day

For the last two years we have all been witnesses to one of the largest collapses of a system mankind has created.

I am not talking about the environment, as I normally do; we have been at it on that issue for much longer than tow years. I am talking about the economic, financial, and judiciary system in the United States. The actual number sand consequences have become obvious for the public in the US and many places around the world more recently, but the collapse has been going on for a while. The reason it could happen in such a dramatic fashion is the neglect of the symptoms the administration in Washington was experiencing.

That reminds us about the neglect of any significant action or law making about the destruction of the environment in the last eight year, in light of symptoms like Hurricane Katrina, ever hotter years around the glob, disappearing ice at the poles, and many more

Now new hope comes with a new leader and his team. One of the big goals is the creation of millions of green jobs in industries and initiatives involving sustainable and environmentally conscious fields

Some people among us might think the United States were always late to the Green revolution. That is not really true. More than 40 years ago there was awareness in a grand scale that had disappeared until very recently. I am talking about Earth Day.

I am involved in the largest global virtual initiative to organize the celebration of Earth Day through the utilization of social networks and modern internet media. Its called Social Traffic Inc. and this is a contribution by AEM.EDBD. We are planning to make Earth Day 2009 the biggest celebration and party the online-community has ever seen or been part of. To learn where it all started, let’s go back and discover

“How the First Earth Day Came About

By Senator Gaylord Nelson, Founder of Earth Day, himself:

What was the purpose of Earth Day? How did it start? These are the questions I am most frequently asked.

Actually, the idea for Earth Day evolved over a period of seven years starting in 1962. For several years, it had been troubling me that the state of our environment was simply a non-issue in the politics of the country. Finally, in November 1962, an idea occurred to me that was, I thought, a virtual cinch to put the environment into the political “limelight” once and for all. The idea was to persuade President Kennedy to give visibility to this issue by going on a national conservation tour.

I flew to Washington to discuss the proposal with Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who liked the idea. So did the President. The President began his five-day, eleven-state conservation tour in September 1963. For many reasons the tour did not succeed in putting the issue onto the national political agenda. However, it was the germ of the idea that ultimately flowered into Earth Day.

I continued to speak on environmental issues to a variety of audiences in some twenty-five states. All across the country, evidence of environmental degradation was appearing everywhere, and everyone noticed except the political establishment. The environmental issue simply was not to be found on the nation’s political agenda. The people were concerned, but the politicians were not.

After President Kennedy’s tour, I still hoped for some idea that would thrust the environment into the political mainstream. Six years would pass before the idea that became Earth Day occurred to me while on a conservation speaking tour out West in the summer of 1969. At the time, anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, called “teach-ins,” had spread to college campuses all across the nation. Suddenly, the idea occurred to me - why not organize a huge grassroots protest over what was happening to our environment?

I was satisfied that if we could tap into the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse the student anti-war energy into the environmental cause, we could generate a demonstration that would force this issue onto the political agenda. It was a big gamble, but worth a try.

At a conference in Seattle in September 1969, I announced that in the spring of 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment and invited everyone to participate. The wire services carried the story from coast to coast. The response was electric. It took off like gangbusters. Telegrams, letters, and telephone inquiries poured in from all across the country. The American people finally had a forum to express its concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes, and air - and they did so with spectacular exuberance. For the next four months, two members of my Senate staff, Linda Billings and John Heritage, managed Earth Day affairs out of my Senate office.

Five months before Earth Day, on Sunday, November 30, 1969, The New York Times carried a lengthy article by Gladwin Hill reporting on the astonishing proliferation of environmental events:

“Rising concern about the environmental crisis is sweeping the nation’s campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam…a national day of observance of environmental problems…is being planned for next spring…when a nationwide environmental ‘teach-in’…coordinated from the office of Senator Gaylord Nelson is planned….”

It was obvious that we were headed for a spectacular success on Earth Day. It was also obvious that grassroots activities had ballooned beyond the capacity of my U.S. Senate office staff to keep up with the telephone calls, paper work, inquiries, etc. In mid-January, three months before Earth Day, John Gardner, Founder of Common Cause, provided temporary space for a Washington, D.C. headquarters. I staffed the office with college students and selected Denis Hayes as coordinator of activities.

Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.”

That was then. Now people have many things to do and don’t follow the traditional patters of energetic participation. The one place we can still find it is on the internet, especially in social networks. That’s where we will be and create a buzz and a movement to energize the celebration and motivate at least 20 million people, hopefully more.

If you are interested to join me, take a look at the designated event site at http://www.socialtraffic.biz or search for events and promotion opportunities at http://www.eventslisted.com

Axel Meierheofer, AEM.EDBD