Well it is Earth Day again and every year on April 22 some of us wonder how this all started and how far along are we in our efforts to clean earth up!
Well as a historian I can give you the short history of Earth Day!
It was "Founded Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, after witnessing the ravages of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California."
Yes it was founded because of an "oil spill" and we ain't done much about those..as a matter of fact very little has changed about oil spills. One of my favorite commentaries on that was done on the Rachel Maddow Show....
Isn't that hilarious...but sad...
Lets see.."Nelson was inspired by the student anti-war movement, he realized that if he could infuse that energy with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution, it would force environmental protection onto the national political agenda."
Well it did and we formed the EPA....eventually....."On the 22nd of April,1970.. 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values."
Well....somehow I think this has all sort of wound down to groups and schools doing something and the newspapers covering it locally.....we however still do not have the people in power listening to the earth...as a matter of fact it seems all we talk about is "Oil" and more drilling....and "hydrofracking" for more gas...
We still find people driving huge cars and trucks with HEMI's ..carrying nothing but a few items and toys like..four wheelers, huge engined snowmobiles, etc.....When was the last time you were on the road and people were driving under the speed limit to save gas??????
Then came "ethanol" a new energy source made using farm machinery to plant and harvest, and energy to distill....cost of gas going up..gas mileage going down.....hummmm....this picture is not pretty.
Well my advise to those who wish to celebrate this year's Earth Day....have a picnic, don't drive far or fast, use someones fuel efficient vehicle if you don't have one..."car pool" your picnic...and remember..by cleaning up the EARTH....
"The Life You Save May Be Your Own"!
Watch Barbra Streisand and enjoy her 1990 Earth Day music!
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