This essay is based on a talk I was invited to give at my home institution, the University of New Hampshire, as part of the Earth Day celebration in 2021. It attempts to put both the 1st and the 51st celebration of that day in the context of other social concerns then (1970) and now. As many in the (virtual) audience were students, the historical content was intended to bring an earlier era of environmental concern into the consciousness of this rising generation.
I don’t feel that this essay violates the basic tenet of this site to avoid politics and policy. One part of the practice of history, as with science, is an effort to describe events as clearly and accurately as possible. This essay touches on some events that were political in nature, but I attempt to present them accurately. A historian’s task is harder than that of a scientist. Scientists can usually repeat an experiment to check results. Historians can’t do that, which makes separation from social bias all the more difficult. I have great respect for historians!
I hope this essay achieves the goal of good historical reporting.
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There is both a personal and larger social context to the story I’d like to share with you.
Yes, I was part of the first Earth Day in 1970! When I mention this in class, I can see the bright young minds look aside as they do the mental calculation – and then the dawning realization – is he really that old? I am, and that first Earth Day played a large role in my professional life. We’ll get to that in a minute, but first some historical context.
That first Earth Day was a turning point in the environmental movement in the U.S. The 1960s in general was a time of incredible turmoil. The publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson in 1962 catalyzed environmental thinking and action, and by the end of the decade a host of issues (air and water pollution, nuclear energy and contamination, major oil spills, chemical toxins) highlighted the lack of governmental structures to deal with those and drove environmental activism that was reflected in that first Earth Day. Twenty million Americans – nearly 10% of the population of the U.S. at that time - took part. And this was organized without cell phones, social media or anything more sophisticated than landlines, snail mail and personal contacts.
The momentum created in part by that first Earth Day drove the establishment, in the 1970s, of the Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act, and many other progressive laws that we have, until very recently, taken for granted.
On that first Earth Day, I was a junior at Yale, having spent three years looking for something useful and meaningful to do (classic undergrad in the 60s – be relevant!). We didn’t have many internships in those days and opportunities to get off campus and out into the “real world” were limited. Earth Day gave me that professional goal and purpose I was seeking. That led, in turn, to my Engineering advisor recommending that I walk up the street to the newly renamed School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (now renamed again) which led in turn to inspiring years of graduate study and eventually to the opportunity to work with all the wonderful folks who are and have been part of the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study. Truly, Earth Day made it all possible for me. It set the wheels of my career in motion.
And as a result of Earth Day and what followed, significant environmental progress has been made. In the last session of my class on an Introduction to Environmental Science, the topic is “Solved or Not?” In that class we catalog many of the environmental victories that have been won, as well as the remaining challenges.
What are some of those victories? Well, there is no longer lead in gasoline or paint (if you wanted to spread a deadly toxin generally over a 20th century population, adding it to gasoline and painting the interior walls of homes with it would be excellent choices). The production of DDT has been greatly reduced, thanks to Rachel Carson, if not totally eliminated. The killer fogs of 1950s London are (nearly) gone. The concentration of “smog” in the Los Angeles basin has been reduced by about 80% since the 1950s (growing up there I didn’t know that there were mountains off to the east of the city because I never saw them - elementary school kids were often subjected to “smog alerts” meaning don’t run around and don’t play outside). The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland hasn’t actually caught fire for several decades now. Eutrophication of rivers and lakes has been reduced in part by the simple elimination of phosphorous from laundry products. Both acid rain and the production of ozone-destroying CFCs have been greatly reduced.
And yet two major global change parameters continue to increase unabated – human numbers and basically all of the indicators of climate warming, from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to sea ice retreat to sea level rise to global temperatures. You know all the climate change numbers, but population is rarely addressed directly as a cause of change, even though there is an extremely close relationship between population and carbon dioxide emissions. Population also drives demand for food, and all of the environmental issues related to how we produce food.
There have been big improvements since the 60s in the social system as well. Two of the biggest positive social changes, I feel, are the relationships between the generations and between students and the business community. As a college student in my generation, business was the problem, responsible for both pollution and war. Graduates who went to business school were not seen as part of the solution. As children of the WWII generation, our views of the value of war and patriotism in general often diverged starkly from those of our parents and created schisms that tore families apart.
It has been a comfort and a joy to see that many of these schisms have been healed. Sustainability at UNH is nearly as deeply embedded in the Paul School of Business and Economics as in the environmentally-oriented departments. Students now see market mechanisms and private/public partnerships as paths to solutions instead of a cop-out. When I hear musical “oldies” from the 60s and 70s coming out of dorm windows on campus, I take comfort that we share this great music across the generations as well (that never would have happened in my day as a student – Glen Miller? I don’t think so).
But environment has never been the only, and rarely even the most important of social issues facing the U.S. and the world. The 60s saw the assassination of three charismatic and powerful leaders who could have altered the course of this country for decades – Martin Luther King, Jr., President John F. Kennedy, and his brother Robert. The Vietnam War cost the country over 58,000 mostly young lives, perhaps 8 times as many U.S. military combatants as have died in the Middle East since 9/11.
And the toll was not spread evenly across the population. Black soldiers died in disproportionately high numbers, and the draft deferral conferred by attending college meant that many kids from affluent families did not have to make the choice of whether to go to war, or go to Canada (and the fraction of young men attending college as undergraduates has never been higher).
That deferral ended in 1969, and was replaced by a random drawing based on birth date. I remember well the evening when the first draft lottery was held. It was December of 1969 – I was a junior – it was the same academic year as the first Earth Day (spring 1970). The blatantly biased college deferral was replaced with a totally random drawing of numbers that could, and did, change your life in a heartbeat. Birth dates were pulled out of opaque cups and if your number was above a threshold, you were immediately out of further consideration; permanently excused. Below that number and you were immediately 1-A; prime for drafting. I sat with my roommates and listened on the radio (yes, radio) as our futures were determined. My birth date was just above the cutoff, so hard choices did not have to be made.
And there was another event in New Haven that spring of 1970 that was much bigger than Earth Day. The 60s was a time of demonstrations and protests around blatant discrimination, violence and worse, experienced by Black people all across the country. Black Power personified by the Black Panthers was a major social force. I am not the one to tell that story, but the Leader of the Black Panthers, Bobby Seale, was put on trial in New Haven in the spring of 1970. On May 1, just about a week after that first Earth Day, there was to be a major demonstration against the trial and in support of Bobby Seale.
The story of how violence was averted has taken many forms. I was on the street the night of that protest, and my abiding memory, aside from my only encounter with tear gas, is of a White agitator skillfully drawing a crowd and urging students to take over the ROTC building, or some other symbol, not in support of Bobby Seale, but for other ends, and of a Black Panther member cutting through the gathering crowd and telling him, basically, to bug off (or words to that effect). There had been negotiations between the Yale leadership, the mayor of New Haven and the Black Panther leadership to keep violence down so as to avoid incursions by the National Guard. A prescient decision given the shooting deaths that would come to Jackson State and Kent State before the month was out.
The Bobby Seale trial led to a personal experience of the generational schism of that time. There was a letter circulated on campus in response to the trial saying that the signers did not believe a Black man could receive a fair trial in the US. I signed that letter and it was sent to my home town newspaper. My parents, who did not share that opinion, had no warning this was coming until a friend showed it to them in the paper. Schisms indeed. I can’t imagine how hurt I would feel if my own children had done such a thing, not because of the content, but because of the lack of communication. As it turned out, the jury could not reach a decision and the charges were eventually dropped.
So the larger conclusion for me here is that environmental progress and social progress need to go hand-in-hand. The immediacy of poverty and injustice takes precedence over working for environmental quality. Yes, climate change threatens all and especially the most vulnerable in society, but impacts tend to be delayed and to seem indirect compared with the goals of social protests and movements. This week’s jury decision in Minnesota (in the trial for the murder of George Floyd) demonstrates the power and immediacy of social justice issues. That was rightly the lead story in the media, with environmental stories coming after.
It is an oversimplification to say that progress in the 60s and 70s occurred in both social and environmental spheres, but I think that general conclusion is justified. I feel that this kind of progress can happen again in the 2020s. As one example, sustainability initiatives at UNH and other institutions often strive for social change, fairness and equity in tandem with improved environmental quality.
Live long enough and you begin to see cycles in society and politics. The youthful energy of the 60s and 70s helped to end the war in Asia, and to establish many environmental structures and laws. I see in the Black Lives Matter movement and the re-invigoration of the intensity of environmental concerns over climate change, a rebirth of much of the activism of the 60s and 70s.
This time around I am even more hopeful for a better and more sustainable outcome. Social justice and environmental goals, and even economic well-being, are seen now as complementary, if I read our current cohort of students correctly. Without the societal-level post-traumatic stress disorders from WWII, and the absence of a war on the scale of Vietnam, the generations are less conflicted than when I was a student. The absence of a random lottery draft allows young people to make plans, including military service, with some assurance of the freedom to pursue them.
This is not to minimize the challenges that remain. A culture of hate driven by social media and an inability to reduce gun violence mean death for the innocent far too frequently. Structural discrimination and bias remain. Climate change is an unsolved and globally threatening crisis. But, maybe even more so than 50 years ago, I feel that those problems can be solved.
I was recently gifted with the opportunity to speak with the Board of Trustees of the Environmental Defense Fund, one of the oldest and most effective organizations of its kind. A final question to the panel of six professors was along the lines of – are you optimistic about the future or is it all over. My response was genuine and came without any hesitation. Yes, I said, I am optimistic. If you get to spend a lot of time with bright young people, as I have been able to do, you can’t help but be encouraged by the energy, intelligence and dedication of the rising generation.
As an aside – of the six scholars on the podium, 4 others held the same opinion. Then there was the professor from Princeton who said, basically, nope – its all over! Well 5 out of 6 is pretty good.
So for any current students and Gen Zs out there. Sorry for the pressure, but the world and the future are counting on you. As a boomer, I apologize for what we have left you. I have been ending my most recent classes, after delivering what is intended to be inspirational thoughts to the assembled students, with a humble last slide that says – “OK Boomer” with an image of the young New Zealand legislator who is given credit often for coining the phrase. I love that expression. Sorry for the mess, and time to move aside.
And I move aside holding good thoughts for a better future, and a request that you keep celebrating Earth Day in both its environmental and social justice dimensions.
Thank you.