The environmental revolution launched on Earth Day in 1970 was a turning point in history that transformed society profoundly and for the better.
This revolution was realized through means that were democratic, grassrootsy, organic, ingenious, non-coercive, and non-violent.
Historic social change has never been so welcome before or since. That’s a marvel which deserves commemoration many times over.
Byron Kennard
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Society owes a huge debt to the early environmentalists — the Green Pioneers — as I like to call them. That debt ought to be paid and soon — before all these old-timers kick the bucket. They’re not getting any younger.
Here’s the story in brief:
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The Green Pioneers who launched the environmental revolution over a half-century ago pulled off something momentous, miraculous, and unprecedented. With no money, power, or standing of any sort, this bunch of nobodies stood the world on its ear — and the world cheered!
Earth Day — April 22,1970 — was the jolliest of historical turning points. Twenty million people — ten percent of the American population — took to the streets to demonstrate on behalf of environmental protection. And most of them had fun! That was part of Earth Day’s broad appeal. Everybody responded to Earth Day, even Republicans at the time.
Case in point: after Earth Day, President Richard Nixon (no tree-hugger) created the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and called for a string of new fundamental environmental protection laws.
Congressional Republicans rushed to comply. The Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act (among other new environmental laws) passed Congress almost unanimously. This display of bipartisanship is almost unparalleled in American politics. Sad to say, it didn’t last long, but most of those fundamental laws are still in effect, despite continuous efforts by today’s Republican to gut them.
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Bipartisan political support for the environment in Washington was just the tip of the iceberg. The environmental revolution was a principal turning point in world history, a pivotal event which touched everything under the sun, and changed everything it touched.
Among the things transformed were these: agriculture, business and industry, economics, energy, government, law, medicine and health, science and technology, the arts and humanities, urban development, transportation, all the professions, the whole of academe, and, of course, conservation and natural resource management
Here are the compelling specifics:
- The Green Pioneers created one of the largest, most powerful, constructive, and consequential social movements of all time. Bear in mind that social movements are how history gets changed for the better.
(In American history, for example, ponder the accomplishments of the abolitionists, the suffragettes, the labor organizers, the civil rights activists, the feminists, and the gay rights advocates.)
- The Green Pioneers mobilized and equipped millions of people the world over to take up the defense of their local community environments, including masses of indigenous peoples who occupy more than 20 per cent of the global land surface.
- They inaugurated the transformation of our industrial economy into ecological sustainability — the key to our survival, and a vital, on-going process which continues to make huge strides;
- They fostered a revolution in business and industry— launching countless new green businesses and green industries (for example, ecotourism) which have created millions of new jobs;
- They fostered a revolution in technology by encouraging tinkerers, entrepreneurs, and small businesses to direct their innovative skills to the solution of environmental problems. The result is a whole new generation of green technology, which serves human needs well while reinforcing ecological stability;
- They encouraged millions of people worldwide to change their patterns of consumption in order to benefit the planet’s ecology. In particular, this involved getting people to stop eating meat or to greatly reduce their consumption of it. This change has contributed to the burgeoning animal rights movement;
- They fostered an intellectual revolution by “greening” the professions — academic and vocational — creating in the process environmental education, environmental economics, environmental law, environmental science and technology, environmental engineering, environmental health and medicine, environmental architecture, on and on;
- The environmental revolution fully encompassed the arts and humanities, and found thousands of allies there. Most importantly, there are over one hundred-thousand art, science, and natural history museums in the world and, since Earth Day, most have evolved into citadels of environmental advocacy;
- Nature documentaries are among the most popular programs on television and constitute perhaps the single best way to teach ecology. Some especially great docs have been acclaimed by critics as the best art being produced in our time;
- Earth Day’s most deeply consequential outcome — and certainly its least expected — was that it changed the values of generations yet unborn. The generations that have appeared since Earth Day — Generations X, Y and Z — are each of them greener than the previous one. And now these new voters constitute a majority of the electorate.
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I’m determined to see the Green Pioneers get credited for their distinct contributions to history soon — that is, before all these old-timers kick the bucket. Alas, they are dying off fast. Not the least of these reasons is that I’m one of these old-timers myself — 86 now and with one foot in the grave. Frankly, I don’t expect society to do the right thing and award the Green Pioneers their due. Society is too fucked up to do anything so appropriate, just, polite, and generous.
So I’ve taken matters into my own hands. I myself will bestow the glory on the Green Pioneers that they so richly deserve. In fact, I have already seen to this matter.
I’ve just published a new book titled How I Got to Be a Great Man. The book describes my work as a principal organizer of the environmental movement back in the 1960s and as an organizer of Earth Day in 1970. Following Earth Day, I took on the job as a grand strategist for environmentalism, forging new paths to ecological sustainability. These truly were the years of green pioneering.
Now, here’s the thing: my story cannot be told without telling the story of many other early environmentalists — my fellow Green Pioneers. Without their support and collaboration, I could have done nothing. So they too must be judged by stout historical standards. They too must be proclaimed great leaders.