Earth Day marks 50th year

Feature

Earth Day marks 50th year with call to ‘Climate Action’

By Ronna Faaborg Gannett

Five decades have passed since the first Earth Day was celebrated by the activism of millions of Americans. April of 1970 in America was a pivotal month in many ways.

On April 11, Apollo 13 was launched to the moon and was to be the third manned capsule to land there. But mechanical problems caused the crew to make on-the-fly changes, looping around the moon and returning back to Earth in just six days without landing on the lunar surface.

That Apollo 13 flight was watched and followed in the news by millions of Americans. It’s something that brought us together as a country and continues to do so as we watch movies such as “Apollo 13” and “Hidden Figures,” which dramatically chronicle the accounts from different perspectives.

It’s the flight that put the phrase, “Houston, we’ve had a problem,” in the lexicon for Americans, who still commonly use it for times when they are in trouble.

On April 10, Paul McCartney officially announced the split of The Beatles. The next day the band’s song “Let It Be” went to No. 1 and stayed there for two weeks.

On April 29, the Vietnam War expanded as U.S. forces invaded Cambodia. War protests at home were common, but the fall of Saigon didn’t occur until April of 1975.

It was a time when many Americans were looking out into space and at the world around them and deciding they wanted to see a cleaner, more beautiful place.

In April of 1970, there started to be a push to Keep America Beautiful, and an organization by that name became better known as it put out public service announcements to “keep litter in its place” and encouraged people not to be a “litterbug.”

April 22, 1970, was the first observance of Earth Day, and mil lions of Americans gathered in protests — at college campuses and in hundreds of cities — to demand an end to environmental ignorance.

Earth Day mobilized 20 million Americans, which was then about 10 percent of the population. That first Earth Day is credited with launching the modern environmental movement that is now the planet’s largest civic event, according to EarthDay.org.

Earth Day protests and activities led to passage of landmark environmental laws in the United States, including the Clean Air, Clean Water and Endangered Species acts.

Many countries adopted similar laws, and in 2016, the United Nations chose Earth Day as the day to sign the Paris Climate Agreement into force.

Earth Day in 2020 will be held on Wednesday, April 22, and the theme this year is “Climate Action.”

The 50th anniversary of the day of celebration and activism is “far more than a day. It must be a historic moment when citizens of the world rise up in a united call for the creativity, innovation, ambition and bravery that we need to meet our climate crisis and seize the enormous opportunities of a zero-carbon future.”

“Despite that amazing success and decades of environmental progress, we find ourselves facing an even more dire, almost exis tential, set of global environmental challenges, from loss of biodiversity to climate change to plastic pollution, that call for action at all levels of government,” said Denis Hayes, the organizer of the first Earth Day in 1970 and Earth Day Network’s Board Chair Emeritus.

“Progress has slowed, climate change impacts grow, and our adversaries have become better financed,” said Earth Day Network president Kathleen Rogers. “We find ourselves today in a world facing global threats that demand a unified global response. For Earth Day 2020, we will build a new generation of environmental ist activists, engaging millions of people worldwide.”

Locally, the 50th anniversary of Earth Day coincides with the 10th anniversary on April 25 of the city of Ames’ EcoFair, which is an outreach event with the goal of connecting residents with city staff and experts who provide resources focused on energy, water, land and resources.

Additionally, residents can learn about environmentally minded projects and groups, and how to support a more sustainable future. The city of Ames invites the public to join the activities and educational opportunities on Saturday, April 25.

As part of the dual celebrations, the city of Ames is holding a series of lectures about sustainability. For example, the public is invited to hear Chad Pregracke share his story as the found ing member of Living Lands & Waters at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 21, at Ames City Auditorium.

Pregracke started Living Lands & Waters in 1998 as a not-forprofit organization dedicated to the beautification and restora tion of America’s major rivers and the education of environmental issues. From his single-boat beginning, LL&W has grown to an industrial strength, internationally known organization with a fleet of barges and workboats.

LL&W engages thousands of volunteers each year in river cleanups, hands-on environmental education workshops, the Great Mississippi River Cleanup, Adopt-a-River-Mile program, Invasive Species Removal and the MillionTrees Project.