A few months ago when I thought about how I might celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, it did not occur to me that I, and many others, would be forbidden to report to work. This has created the opportunity for more learning and doing. In honor of Earth Day, Real Hartford will have one week of treehugging, dirt worshipping posts.
The first Earth Day happened fifty years ago. So what? What is the legacy?
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, “Public opinion polls indicate that a permanent change in national priorities followed Earth Day 1970. When polled in May 1971, 25 percent of the U.S. public declared protecting the environment to be an important goal, a 2,500 percent increase over 1969.”
That first Earth Day was a catalyst for the passage or amendment of numerous laws, and its momentum contributed toward the creation of the EPA.
Among those laws:
- Clean Air Act amendments: Established in 1970, with revisions in 1977 and 1990, this essentially set air quality standards that could limit pollution from factory and auto emissions. There were previous acts related to air pollution, but what happened in 1970 “authorized the development of comprehensive federal and state regulations to limit emissions from both stationary (industrial) sources and mobile sources.”
- Water Quality Improvement Act: a 1970 amendment made it illegal to discharge oil into bodies of water and authorized the president to “to publish a National Contingency Plan to provide for efficient and coordinated action to minimize damage from oil discharges, including containment, dispersal, and removal.”
- Water Pollution and Control Act amendments
- Resource Recovery Act; Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
- Toxic Substances Control Act
- Occupational Safety Health Act
- Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act
- Endangered Species Act: Protecting species from extinction, and helping endangered species to recover.
- Safe Drinking Water Act
- Federal Land Policy and Management Act
- Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act
In 1995, Al Gore’s New York Times piece in which he aired his anxieties about Republicans pushing an anti-Earth agenda was also a place of claiming progress: cutting lead emissions by 98% and doubling the number of swimmable lakes and rivers since the first Earth Day. He praised recycling programs for reducing roadside litter.
That gives the impression that Earth Day has been responsible for tremendous progress, but what is a legacy if rollbacks have been threatened during nearly every administration since?
More about that tomorrow.