An Earth Day Message.

On November 30, 1969, the New York Times published an article about the growing movement behind our nation’s increasing concern over environmental catastrophes. "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,” it read. The national day of observance they were referring to was the first Earth Day, organized as a teach in by the office of Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson.

And they were correct. On April 22 the next spring, approximately 20 million Americans turned out to rallies from the East Coast to the West for the first time uniting those working on a variety of issues under one banner. This movement of people remains the largest political event in our nation’s history; no other issue has been able to mobilize as many on a single day.

Faced with a fervent concern and a new political movement around the environment, our government acted. In the following years the EPA was created and laws were passed to clean our air and water, and protect our nation’s biodiversity.  In no period of time since then have we seen a similar movement.

Leading up to the first Earth Day a lot of visible things happened to focus our nation’s attention on the environment. In the early 1960’s Rachel Carson had penned her book “Silent Spring” chronicling the devastating effects of DDT on bird populations, the Cuyahoga River erupted into flames, and an oil spill off the coast of Southern California closed beaches throughout the region and devastated local ecosystems.

It is safe to say that the signs today are just as staggering. We can see the impact that Climate Change is having on our ice caps and glaciers in photos. The dead zones in our estuaries and along our coast lines are visible to all through video. We can easily count the dwindling populations of species across the country. Even today we are just starting to see the impacts of the chemicals that go down our drains and into our waterways on plants, animals, and even ourselves. Aerial photos show the slow decay of the places we call natural and rural to ever encroaching development. Everywhere we turn it is easy to see just what we have been doing to our ecosystems and the impacts are just as dramatic as a river setting fire in their scale and depth.

What does this have to do with today, April 22, 2009?

Have we lost momentum?  While we in the environmental movement may not have lost our momentum perhaps our leaders have. Most will argue the need to do something, but it is clear that as our knowledge of these issues grows we are facing even greater challenges than we thought. Telling us we need to do something or that we need to look into doing something is not the same as taking real, meaningful, and significant action enough to reshape our relationship with the environment we live as part of and depend on. So, what does April 22, 2009 have to do with April 22, 1970?

The legislation that passed after the first Earth Day was passed not only because of a belief it was the right thing to do, but also out of a political movement centered on awareness of the importance of environmental issues, a movement that forced it’s elected leaders to take action on the issues important to them and held those same leaders accountable.

While we have many challenges facing us we have too much to do to relent. The forces that don’t want to see change and action on our shared issues are lined up, have been working for decades, and have been pumping money into the political system to make sure only small changes are enacted and the political will to make the needed changes never exists again. They were so good in fact that elected officials  spent the two decades following the 1970’s looking for ways to defund, gut, limit, and ultimately reverse the unprecedented regulations and systems designed to protect us, our environment, and hold those responsible accountable. Only our continued action can make the difference now.  

I plan to use this Earth Day to reconnect with the legacy of the first Earth Day and reconfirm my commitment to the challenges facing our environment and the need to take part in direct political action to make sure the steps we need happen. I hope that you will do the same. Will you contact your legislators, county commissioners, or city leaders when they are voting on issues that impact the environment? Will you be ready to walk and phone voters who share your environmental values when the primaries start in 2010? I hope you will take this opportunity to find ways to engage the political system and connect yourself to the legacy of this important day. More importantly I hope that you will join those already taking part, for more information on how to get involved please visit us at www.olcv.org.

Andy Maggi is an organizer with the Oregon League of Conservation Voters working in Clackamas, Lane, and Washington County. He also holds a degree in Environmental Ethics and Policy from the University of Portland.