Conscious Choice: Earth Day 2000

April 2000

Earth Day 2000

Millennial Earth Day will rally supporters around issues of energy use and abuse

by Amy Farrar

On April 22, 2000, people all over the world will celebrate Earth Day. The organizing theme this year will be clean energy, including clean power, air, cars, and investments. This theme projects a comparison between the current environment and the first Earth Day in 1970, when Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson initiated the tradition by promoting a nationwide "environmental teach-in" on college campuses. Perhaps the pressing question to ask is, what is the story within the story, and what does it mean within the changing environmental movement?

A Little History

The historical Earth Day timeline shows a stunning growth of heightened environmental consciousness and brilliant triumphs in public education and activism juxtaposed against a near-universal collective "amnesia" about ongoing year-round environmental degradation.

Renowned environmental activist Denis Hayes was among the first organizers at the student teach-ins back in 1970. Hayes organized the first Earth Day and is now chair of the Earth Day Network (EDN), a nonprofit coordinating body for Earth Day activities worldwide, and CEO of the Bullitt Foundation, an organization dedicated to protecting and restoring the environment of the Pacific Northwest. Hayes and Gaylord Nelson are once again directing this year’s Earth Day activities.

According to the EDN web site, "This time we have urgent planetary issues such as global warming. We also have the spirit, optimism, and technological savvy of a new millennium."

Since 1970, we have witnessed the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and a variety of clean air, water, and endangered species acts. Earth Day 1990 rallied the masses into global solidarity for concern about the planet and received an enormous amount of attention, largely due to the fact that it fell on the heels of several huge environmental disasters such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989.

Leslie Davis, founder and president of Earth Protector, a Minneapolis-based environmental organization founded in 1983, said his organization was very busy around the twentieth anniversary of Earth Day. He said solid waste was a huge issue and his organization was swamped with work in the late 1980s; but after the euphoria of the early 1990s wore off, "it was [back to] work, work, work. For the last ten years, it’s just been filings, meetings, lawsuits, and legislation."

What exactly, we must ask ourselves, has and is Earth Day accomplishing? How far exactly have we come? One thing made clear by the environmental leaders we spoke with is that Earth Day and the environmental movement surrounding it has had its triumphs and setbacks. Although the past may be accentuated by the huge environmental disasters that stick out in everyone’s minds, which is worse — the ones that make the headlines, or the more insidious kind that happen every day, such as pollution, urban sprawl, overpopulation, and genetic engineering?

The Story Within the Story

Speaking to this year’s Earth Day theme of clean energy, the Earth Day Network web site states: "Our current addiction to coal, oil, and nuclear power imperils the world’s climate, fouls the environment, harms human health, and results in the proliferation of nuclear materials. Communities of color and low-income communities bear a disproportionate share of environmental degradation and are frequently excluded from decision-making processes."

Straight from Greenpeace’s web site: "More than 2,500 scientists across the world have determined that human activities are changing our climate and upsetting the natural balance of our atmosphere. Yet the fossil fuel industry is in denial, funneling millions of dollars into advertising and lobbying campaigns to oppose action to stop global warming."

Dave Kraft, Director of Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS) in Evanston, Illinois, said this year’s organizing theme is "a big deal to us." Kraft, who has been an environmental activist for about twenty years, belongs to a number of environmental groups and serves as co-coordinator for Chicago Earth Month 2000, a month-long event hosted by a coalition of more than a hundred environmental organizations throughout Chicago. NEIS is the "watchdog group," as Kraft puts it, of nuclear power in Illinois and promotes sustainable energy as a viable replacement to nuclear power.

In Kraft’s opinion, Earth Day has provided an annual "galvanizing moment" for issues and messages "that otherwise would be totally absent from peoples’ consciousness." Kraft, who was the founding member of Earth Day 1990 in Chicago, said the event was very grassroots. "It was literally built from the ground up in five months; we raised $250,000 and ended up with a small surplus. That was great work, with spectacular people," he said.

But he added that the initial success of Earth Day 1990 came with a heavy price for both national and international environmental organizations. Kraft said many environmental organizations became victims of the initial success, which he attributes to poor planning. "These national organizations were deluged with new waves of membership and income," he said. Three to four years after the initial fervor wore off, membership levels once again dropped, but many of the organizations, including local groups in Chicago, had expanded their programming without saving any of the funds raised in 1990, Kraft said.

"Whatever initially grabbed people wore off three to four years later," Kraft continued. "It makes me wonder if it wasn’t environmental."

The "every day is Earth Day" theme scares Kraft. "When you do that you run the risk of trivializing it, of turning something special and sacred into kitsch and platitude." He noted that the Earth Day theme itself can fall victim to consumerism, wherein corporations promote Earth Day gadgets and encourage recycling but do little else to protect the planet. "With computerization, mass media, and globalization, we run the very real risk of losing to corporations and commerce the whole show and the whole message of Earth Day — which is to slow down and reflect, not speed up and ignore; to consume less, not more; to become centered and conscious and purposeful, not fragmented, dumbed-down, meaningless, or trivial," said Kraft.

Leslie Davis agrees with Kraft. Davis thinks Earth Day should be a national holiday. His organization is rejecting invitations to appear at Earth Day events that are not celebrated on April 22. He said agreeing to celebrate on any other day buys into the concept that the earth should be respected when it’s convenient for people to do so, which defeats the purpose.

Jack Darin, director of the Illinois chapter of the Sierra Club, said his organization looks at Earth Day as more of a way to promote environmental protectionism year-round. "Earth Day is a good opportunity to learn about environmental issues, but we need to make a commitment to put that knowledge into action every other day of the year, whether it’s changing our buying habits or becoming more active participants in our democracy and holding our elected officials accountable on environmental issues," he said.

Kraft agrees with Darin. "This is getting back to our democratic heritage. If we do make the time and sacrifice to take back political power first locally, then we’ll get the economy and environment we deserve." Kraft believes that grassroots activism is the only real way of getting at globalization issues, starting with the most basic levels of local government. "Global corporate entities have no allegiance to any country," said Kraft. "They use their vast financial resources and political connections to supersede local laws." He said that even in today’s relocation-oriented society, people can get involved — no matter where they are and no matter how long they’ve been there.

Just as corporations and individuals may veil themselves as environmentalists by promoting Earth Day once a year, recycling also can serve as a convenient prop for this type of disguise, said Kraft. "Being an environmentalist has to mean more than docilely recycling your six-pack cans," he said. "We’ve been preaching [recycling] for decades, and what do we as a movement have to show for it?"

Darin said the Illinois chapter of the Sierra Club is participating in Earth Day events but is planning its outreach campaigns for May to eliminate competition with Earth Day activities. The four issues the organization will be focusing on in the Chicago area include sprawl, water pollution from livestock factories, logging of international forests, and habitat destruction in North America. Commenting on this year’s clean energy theme, Darin said, "Alternatives to fossil fuel is perhaps the most important issue to start the century with."

For more information on how to get involved in Earth Day activities near you, go to the Earth Day Network web site. The site outlines the Clean Energy Agenda for Earth Day 2000 that includes a petition endorsing the agenda, numerous resource guides, links to eco-friendly web sites, an organizer’s guide to local activism, and other helpful information.

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