Ruminations on Earth Day, Then and Now

Back in 1970 when the first Earth Day was declared, the flower children still walked the streets of San Francisco barefoot, spreading peace, love and good will. Even so, it wasn’t all sweetness and sunshine for the Gaians. Earth Day was largely viewed with some suspicion by a moral majority who thought the status quo was “just so” thank you very much. At the Continental Congress of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Washington that week, a delegate from Mississippi, evidently equating environmentalists with communists, declared: "Subversive elements plan to make American children live in an environment that is good for them."

That seems laughable now, but never fear, there still exists today an extreme right-wing faction that not only dismisses the environmental movement as a fanatical fringe of bunny lovers and tree huggers, they do it gleefully and belligerently, both in front of the media and from within the media on a regular basis. We know who they are. Naming them only gives them more attention, more power. So let’s not.

Cue the enlightenment, then fast forward to Earth Day 2011 and generally you will find that the eco movement has grown and gained purchase. We are legion, but we still have a long way to go. We’ve made some progress; we’ve lost some ground. We have to put up with corporate greenwashing for one thing. In a way, the latter could be construed as a sign of our success. So much has public perception changed during the intervening decades on matters such as water and air pollution, waste disposal and energy consumption that the corporate powers that be decided they had better put a green face on their business practices or they could lose customers. (Now, it seems, the moral majority might very well be green.)

Sadly, most of those corporations are still selling us the same stuff, albeit with a green ribbon on the top. Our landfills are still filling up, we’re still shipping garbage elsewhere, and much of that garbage has been the spawn of the digital age—cast-off computers, peripherals, tech gadgets and handhelds that become all too rapidly obsolete. They have to go somewhere. True, there are recycling programs for everything these days. I dutifully take my ink cartridges back to Staples and I recycle batteries and other special items properly, like everyone else does, at least, I hope everyone else does…

Yet, walk into any grocery store, fast food franchise, cineplex or café and you soon realize that we are still making and producing—and throwing away—an awful lot of CRAP.

You know that French axiom, the one that goes something like this: Plus ça change, plus c’est pareil? Well, there’s actually quite a bit of truth to it. From that very golden year, 1970, when Earth Day was just a newly minted coin for our emerging republic of green and all things still seemed delightfully possible, here is a satirical little spoof on human folly from humorist Art Buchwald.

And Man created the plastic bag and the tin and aluminum can and the cellophane wrapper and the paper plate, and this was good because Man could then take his automobile and buy all his food in one place and He could save that which was good to eat in the refrigerator and throw away that which had no further use. And soon the earth was covered with plastic bags and aluminum cans and paper plates and disposable bottles and there was nowhere to sit down or walk, and Man shook his head and cried: “Look at this Godawful mess.”

Plus ça change...