Earth Day: How Has It Aged?
It Was Impactful. But Now It Is More About A Coercive Political Agenda
Today is the 51st anniversary of Earth Day, a major national event prompted by the late Gaylord Nelson, a Democratic US Senator from Wisconsin. Some say it is inspired by an oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, in 1969. Some credit the environmental screed, Silent Spring, several years previously by Rachel Carson. Ignore how many people died from malaria as a result of banning DDT, prompted by Carson’s tome.
About 22 million people - at the time, about 10 percent of the total US population - protested that day across the United States, including in Philadelphia’s Fairmont Park, hosted in part by University of Pennsylvania student Ira Einhorn. Einhorn took the environment so seriously that when he killed his girlfriend, he composted her.
One could say that Einhorn was just ahead of his time, even a visionary. Not for murder - that’s been around since Cain and Abel - but composting humans. It’s a thing now at “Recompose,” a new kind of funeral home in Kent, Washington.
And if you’re interested in contributing to our food supply after you’ve departed this earthly realm, perhaps watching this Charleston Heston flick from 1973, Soylent Green, will inspire you. It was the late, legendary actor Edward G. Robinson’s final movie, and he stars in its final climactic scene.
The futuristic Soylent Green was based in 2022 in a wildly overpopulated and polluted New York City. I think I’m going to organize a big watch party for Soylent Green on Earth Day, 2022.
A lot of interesting predictions were being made about the future when Earth Day began. Let’s visit a few of them, courtesy of Reason.com:
“We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”
• Kenneth Watt, ecologist“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
• George Wald, Harvard Biologist“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.”
• Barry Commoner, Washington University biologist“Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”• New York Times editorial, the day after the first Earth Day
“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.”
• Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
• Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University
This one was kind of true, except it was more about a pandemic than air pollution:
“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”
• Life Magazine, January 1970
But here are my personal favorites.
“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.'”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist“Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
• Sen. Gaylord Nelson
Earth Day, to its credit, did helped spur major changes that helped neuter these apocalyptic predictions (some were just plain alarmist). President Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency. Congress enacted the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts within 3 years. Both of those laws spurned a whole host of programs and initiatives that deserve credit for helping clean up the air and our waters, especially upgrading municipal wastewater treatment and drinking water plants.
Recycling also has become a big thing, and “single-stream” recycling is a huge plus, at least for consumers. Sadly, the recycling industry is failing, even with the demand for more recycled packaging and products (not Soylent Green). It’s complicated.
The Clean Air Act has been used to force automakers and fuel companies to convert from lead-based gasoline, clean up energy plant emissions, and more. Congress in the 1970’s also established Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards to help automakers produce vehicles to pollute less and be more efficient. CAFE standards, like so many other government programs, are imperfect and often controversial, but there’s no denying their effect.
But the government doesn’t deserve all the credit. Consumer demand deserves a lot as well, and companies have figured out that reducing waste and increasing environmental “sustainability” and stewardship helps reduce costs and improve the bottom line. After President Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords, America continued to reduce its carbon emissions more than any other nation, including climate-conscious Canada. And it’s been going down for more than a decade. No other country is even close.
I like reminding people that our first environmentally responsible food product was condensed soup, invented more than a century ago. “The process lowered the cost for packaging, shipping, and storage, enabling the distinctive red-and-white cans of soup to become a staple in most American households when it had previously been a delicacy for the wealthy,” says world-foodhistory.com. Disclosure: I formerly worked for Campbell Soup and still own stock in the company.
But that’s not what Earth Day is about anymore. Instead of celebrating our achievements in cleaning up our water and air over the past 51 years and celebrating products and services that are environmentally friendly, despite a global population that almost doubled, that’s not enough.
Today, the Biden Administration began a two-day Earth Day Climate Summit. And of course, in the face of communist Chinese aggression against Taiwan, not to mention their role in causing and propagating the Coronavirus pandemic, what’s our focus? Getting President Xi to speak. I wonder how much effect that will have on a Communist government building 184 coal-fired energy plants and may have 250 gigawatts of coal-fired power under development, more than the entire coal capacity of the United States? And also while Chinese fishing fleets are vacuuming the ocean of fish. Maybe Xi will start retaking our recyclable refuse?
But instead of blaming and focusing their ire on the communist Chinese government, some climate activists have another target in mind.
A lot of Americans are giving less credit to Earth Day for our environmental accomplishments. Perhaps that’s a shame. So this Earth Day, let’s focus on recognizing our achievements and committing to doing our part to be smart environmental stewards, including fixing our recycling issue (but no Soylent Green). Sure, let’s applaud and patronize companies that take responsible steps to reduce their negative environmental impacts while continuing to focus on serving shareowners and customers through lower prices and increased profitability, with or without government incentives. And let’s not reward countries and companies that don’t.
But do not let woke activists and malign government activists hijack public policy and the marketplace to coerce Americans into destructive, top-down political agendas or line their own pockets. Our national public policy should always focus on, in the words of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, “free-market reforms that ensure abundant and affordable energy and better protect our environment.”