Earth Day 2008
Published on Apr 22, 2008 at 8:54 pm.
2 Comments.
Filed under Earth, politics.
April 22, 1970, I went to school as on any other day. Only that day, many of the lessons were on Earth and the environment. That was the first Earth Day. I remember that we had an aluminum recycling contest going on in the school that had been going on since Christmas break. Whatever class had collected the most recyclable aluminum products (mostly cans) would get a prize. The deadline for collecting was Earth Day. That Earth Day was supposed to be a wake-up call to throw light onto the problems with the environment. The air was polluted, the water was polluted, and the sense that we young people had was that there wouldn’t be any clean air and water left by the time that we were grown and had children of our own.
And, of course, there was plenty to worry about. The waterways were getting polluted. There was always trash and oil washing ashore at Galveston. Pristine and beautiful lakes that were tourist attractions had garbage floating on them. The Cuyahoga River in Ohio even caught fire from the industrial pollutants in it. The major cities all had a brown haze over them from the pollution. Buildings and statues looked dirty. Most gasoline sold in the United States had lead in it to control pre-ignition in engines. Landfills were filling up due to an increasing population turning to more ease of use throw-away items rather than reusable ones.
The idea for Earth Day can be traced to 1969 and Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson (who died only three years ago). Earth Day was to be a teach-in about the environment. The date for Earth Day was set for late April of the following year. The lead-up to Earth Day gave schools a chance to get ready. Millions of college and pre-college students participated.
Now, it is 38 years later. Earth Day was a big deal in 1970. Today, most people don’t know about it. But, the idea of raising environmental awareness is still sound. Some progress has been made, but how much depends upon how you look at it. Environmental activists have succeeded in getting a lot of polluting factories and manufacturing sites closed here in the United States. While that helps the local environment, it has done nothing to help the world environment. Those factories and that manufacturing have just moved overseas, to places like China, where environmental laws are even more lax than they were in the US in 1970. Cars are much more efficient today, and each car pollutes far less per mile and per hour driven. However, today there are far more cars, and most of them are driven far more miles and for far more hours than in 1970. Biofuels such as ethanol are being used more. But, that means more agriculture, often at the expense of native plants and animals. It is unclear what the actual environmental impact of these biofuels may be. I can go on, but you get the picture. Some advances have been made, but often these advances come at some cost.
Now, that doesn’t mean that we should all give up hope. After all, the air and water are cleaner on average than they were four decades ago. The key to truly having an impact on improving the environment is for everyone to do their part. While what you or I do to lessen our environmental footprint may be small, it would add up if everyone did just a little bit. To me, that is what Earth Day is about. It is reminding us all to take just a few steps to helping the environment. Combine your trips in the car to use less fuel. Turn off lights when you are not using them. Don’t use throw-away things if a reusable one would work. If you can use a reusable bag for groceries, then do that. Plant a tree. Buy a more fuel efficient vehicle the next time that you need to buy a car. These are all small things, but if enough people do that, then they’ll add up.
-Astroprof
Lab Lemming on April 27, 2008 at 7:08 pm: 1
Is that Apollo or one of the current Japanese/Indian satellites?
Astroprof on April 28, 2008 at 12:47 pm: 2
That was an Apollo 8 image.