Earth Day – Celebrating The Planet (Quietly, In Bed)

Drift off with a soothing dive into Earth Day—its origins, oddly specific dates, and how it became the planet’s favorite low-effort holiday. Ideal for eco-friendly bedtime stories and insomnia relief that’s 100% biodegradable.

Transcript

Welcome to the I Can't Sleep podcast where I bore you to sleep one fact at a time.

I'm your host Benjamin Boster,

And tonight let's fall asleep learning about Earth Day.

Earth Day is an annual event on April 22nd to demonstrate support for environmental protection.

In 1969 at a UNESCO conference in San Francisco,

Peace activist John McConnell proposed a day to honor the Earth and the concept of peace,

To first be observed on March 21st,

1970,

The first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere.

This day of nature's equipoise was later sanctioned in a proclamation written by McConnell and signed by Secretary General Hugh Thant at the United Nations.

A month later,

United States Senator Gaylord Nelson proposed the idea to hold a nationwide environmental teach-in on April 22nd,

1970,

And hired a young activist,

Dennis Hayes,

To be the national coordinator.

The name Earth Day was coined by advertising writer Julian Koenig.

Dennis and his staff grew the event beyond the original idea for a teach-in to include the entire United States.

Key non-environmentally focused partners played major roles.

Under the leadership of labor leader Walter Ruther,

For example,

The United Auto Workers,

UAW,

Was the most instrumental outside financial and operational supporter of the first Earth Day.

According to Hayes,

Without the UAW,

The first Earth Day would have likely flopped.

Nelson was later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom award in recognition of his work.

The first Earth Day was focused on the United States.

In 1990,

Dennis Hayes,

The original national coordinator in 1970,

Took it international and organized events in 141 nations.

On Earth Day 2016,

The landmark Paris Agreement was signed by the United States,

The United Kingdom,

China,

And 120 other countries.

The signing satisfied a key requirement for the entry into force of the historic draft climate protection treaty adopted by consensus of the 195 nations present at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris.

Numerous communities engaged in Earth Day week actions,

An entire week of activities focused on the environmental issues that the world faces.

On Earth Day 2020,

Over 100 million people around the world observed the 50th anniversary and what is being referred to as the largest online mass mobilization in history.

On January 28,

1969,

A well-called Platform A drilled by Union Oil six miles off the coast of Santa Barbara,

California,

Blew out.

More than three million U.

S.

Gallons of oil spilled.

As a reaction to this disaster,

Activists were mobilized to create environmental regulation,

Environmental education,

And Earth Day.

Among the proponents of Earth Day were the people in the front lines of fighting this disaster,

Selma Rubin,

Mark McGinnis,

And Bud Bottoms,

Founder of Get Oil Out.

Dennis Hayes,

Organizer of the first Earth Day,

Said that Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin was inspired to create Earth Day upon seeing an 800-square-mile oil slick from an airplane in the Santa Barbara Channel.

On the first anniversary of the oil blowout,

January 28,

1970,

Environmental Rights Day was created,

And the Declaration of Environmental Rights was read.

It had been written by Rod Nash during a boat trip across the Santa Barbara Channel while carrying a copy of Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence.

The organizers of Environmental Rights Day were the people led by Mark McGinnis,

Had been working closely over a period of several months with Congressman Pete McCloskey to consult on the creation of the National Environmental Policy Act,

The first of many new environmental protection laws,

Sparked by the national outcry about the blowout oil spill,

And on the Declaration of Environmental Rights.

Both McCloskey,

Earth Day co-chair with Senator Gaylord Nelson,

And Earth Day organizer Dennis Hayes,

Along with Senator Alan Cranston,

Paul Ehrlich,

David Brower,

And other prominent leaders,

Endorsed the Declaration and spoke about it at the Environmental Rights Day conference.

According to Francis Sargas,

The conference was sort of like the baptism for the movement.

According to Hayes,

This was the first giant crowd he spoke to that felt passionately,

I mean really passionately,

About environmental issues.

Hayes also thought the conference might be the beginning of a real movement.

Nash,

Garrett Hardin,

McGinnis,

And others went on to develop the first undergraduate environmental studies program of its kind at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

The seeds that grew into the first Earth Day were planted by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson,

An ardent conservationist and former two-term governor of Wisconsin.

Nelson had long sought ways to increase the potency of the environment as a political issue.

Extraordinary attention garnered by Rachel Carson's 1962 book,

Silent Spring,

The famous 1968 Earthrise NASA photograph of the Earth from the Moon,

The saturation news coverage given to the Santa Barbara oil spill,

And the Cuyahoga River catching fire in early 1969 led Nelson to think the time was ripe for an environmental initiative.

As a result of interactions with his staff and with Fred Dutton,

A prominent Democratic operative who had been Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign manager,

Nelson became convinced that environmental teach-ins on college campuses could serve as such a vehicle.

Teach-ins had been held on hundreds of college campuses to debate the war in Vietnam.

They generally reflected the divide between those who thought of Vietnam as a bulwark to stop additional countries falling to communism like dominoes versus those who believed that the war was the latest stage of a nationalist anti-colonialist campaign by Vietnamese who had fought against China,

Then France,

Japan,

France again,

And now the United States.

These debates elevated arguments over the war in the public consciousness and enlisted a generation of student activists.

Nelson asked public interest lawyer Anthony Roizman to establish a non-profit environmental teach-in,

Inc.

,

To manage the campaign and recruited a small board of directors.

He asked Republican Congressman Pete McCloskey to co-chair the board to ensure it was bipartisan and bicameral.

On September 20,

1969,

Senator Nelson first announced his plans for an environmental teach-in in a little publicized talk at the University of Washington.

I am convinced that the same concern the youth of this nation took in changing this nation's priorities on the war in Vietnam and on civil rights can be shown for the problem of the environment.

That is why I plan to see to it that a national teach-in is held.

Senator Nelson went on to encourage teach-ins at many more speeches.

A November talk at Airlie House had a New York Times reporter in the audience.

The resulting front-page article was a turning point.

Letters of inquiry from across the country began to pour into Nelson's Senate office.

The article piqued the interest of Dennis Hayes,

Then a graduate student at Harvard.

Hayes traveled to Washington,

D.

C.

,

And arranged a 10-minute visit with Senator Nelson,

Which stretched into two hours.

Hayes' return to Harvard was the charter to organize Boston.

After a few days of reference checks,

He was asked to drop out of Harvard to become executive director of the national campaign.

Because of the non-hierarchical tenor of the times,

Hayes suggested that people be designated coordinators rather than directors.

He became the national coordinator,

And he quickly hired various regional coordinators,

A press coordinator,

A K-12 coordinator,

A volunteer coordinator,

Etc.

At its peak,

The national office had a few dozen paid staff,

Each earning a flat $375 a month,

Equivalent to $3,

215 in 2024,

Plus more than 100 regular volunteers.

As the talented regional coordinators fanned out across the country,

However,

They immediately encountered two problems.

First,

By 1970,

The concept of teach-ins had become passé.

Moreover,

Teach-ins generally involved debates,

And no one was pro-pollution.

Second,

And more troubling,

Leading activists on college campuses were deeply involved in the anti-war and civil rights movements.

They tended to view the environment as a distraction.

The solution to the first problem came from an unexpected direction.

Shortly after the turn of the year,

Julian Koenig stopped by the national offices and volunteered to help.

Koenig was a Madison Avenue giant.

His campaign for Volkswagen,

Think small,

Was later cited by Advertising Age as the greatest advertising campaign of the 20th century.

Over coffee,

Hayes confided that the teach-in moniker was not working and asked whether Koenig had any ideas.

Koenig asked for a few days.

A week later,

He returned with an assortment of mock-ups for ads laid out around the announcement of Ecology Day,

Environmental Day,

Earth Day,

And E-Day.

Koenig said that his personal favorite was Earth Day,

In part because April 22nd happened to be his birthday,

And birthday rhymes with Earth Day.

Hayes immediately agreed.

Koenig offered to prepare a fully refined ad.

Hayes insisted that it include a small coupon soliciting funds for the threadbare operation.

Koenig's ad was visually arresting and perfectly summed up the issues and values,

The feisty but welcoming tone that the campaign had adopted.

Hayes loved it and decided to bet the farm.

He committed about half of all the money in the campaign's bank account to buy a full page in the Sunday New York Times opinion section.

The ad was a huge success.

Overnight,

Earth Day became the almost universally used name for the upcoming event.

The ad generated more than enough revenue to repay its cost,

And thousands of potential organizers sent in their names and addresses,

Along with their checks.

In future months,

Magazines and alternative newspapers ran the ad for free,

Generating still more names and more financial support.

The national office started using environmental action,

Rather than environmental teaching,

On its letterhead and publications to promote Earth Day.

At this point,

Hayes made a far-reaching decision.

In those early days,

It would have been easy to obtain trademark protection for Earth Day and force compliance with a set of standards by anyone using it.

Hayes decided,

However,

That he wanted the name to be broadly used by anyone who planned to focus on environmental issues that spring.

Although Earth Day swiftly replaced environmental teaching,

The second problem proved more complicated.

College activists,

For the most part,

Viewed anything other than ending the war as a distraction.

A majority of the Earth Day staff had cut their tees as organizers against the war and saw no conflict.

The war appeared to be winding down,

And they felt it was prudent to start paying attention to the far more profound changes needed to produce a healthy,

Sustainable America.

But time was short,

And college activists were not responding.

Hayes spent a day reviewing the letters Senator Nelson had received and discovered that very few were from college students.

Most were from women who appeared to be college-educated homemakers who wanted to do something to improve the world for their children.

Another large share was from K-12 teachers.

Hayes decided to shift the campaign's focus from colleges and universities to community organizing.

Building off the successful strategies of the anti-war movement and the civil rights movement,

He decided to promote large urban rallies focused on major environmental issues,

While also encouraging environmental education at the K-12 level.

Bryce Hamilton,

Who had been Midwest's coordinator,

Was shifted to a K-12 coordinator,

And it proved to be a great choice.

Hamilton reached out to the National Education Association,

American Federation of Teachers,

And the National Science Teachers Association to enlist their members.

He provided materials to thousands of educators who wrote to the group directly,

And he distributed the most creative ideas you receive from anyone to everyone else.

In April,

More than 10,

000 primary and secondary schools engaged in Earth Day activities,

Mostly education and service actions like beach cleanups,

Tree planting,

And recycling.

Walt Kelly created an anti-pollution poster featuring his comic strip character Pogo with the quotation,

We have met the enemy,

And he is us,

To promote the 1970 Earth Day.

Environmental groups have sought to make Earth Day into a day of action to change human behavior and provoke policy changes.

By far,

The largest source of funding for the first Earth Day was organized labor.

Walter Ruther had led the United Auto Workers since 1946,

And he was a progressive supporter of civil rights,

Opposed the war,

And championed the environment.

He was a founding member of the Coalition for Clean Air,

Which successfully lobbied for the Clean Air Act of 1970.

Walter Ruther,

President of the United Auto Workers,

Made the first donation to support the first Earth Day in the amount of $2,

000,

Equivalent to $16,

194 in 2024.

Under his leadership,

The UAW also funded telephone capabilities so that the organizers could communicate and coordinate with each other from all across the United States.

The UAW also financed,

Printed,

And mailed all of their literature and other materials for the first Earth Day,

And mobilized its members to participate in the public demonstrations across the country.

According to Dennis Hayes,

The UAW was by far the largest contributor to the first Earth Day,

And without the UAW,

The first Earth Day would have likely flopped.

Hayes further said,

Walter's presence at our first press conference utterly changed the dynamics of the coverage.

We had instant credibility.

At a meeting of the Environmental Teach-in Board of Directors,

The Finance Committee Chair arrived with a check for $20,

000,

Equivalent to $161,

937 in 2024,

From Standard Oil of New Jersey,

Now ExxonMobil.

That would have provided an effective measure of financial relief for the financially strapped group.

But Hayes declined the check,

Convincing the board that it would destroy the credibility of the nascent organization.

He said that he would be delighted to accept money from clean sources,

But no other corporate money was ever raised for the national organization.

Individual donations were a significant source of funding,

Generally accompanied by a contribution slip from the Earth Day ad providing the donor's name and address.

Larry Rockefeller persuaded Robert Rauschenberg to create and donate a batch of Earth Day lithographs,

But the Earth Day staff lacked contacts in the art world who were able to sell them for their $2,

000 market value,

So they were provided to donors for much less.

The sale of standard posters,

And especially pins,

Brought in additional revenue.

The staff refused to sell bumper strips because they would be attached to cars.

The staff of Environmental Teach-in resigned immediately after Earth Day,

And most moved directly to a new organization,

Environmental Action,

With a tax status that permitted lobbying and a more activist stance.

EA immediately confronted a problem that had been looming in the background throughout the campaign.

Some of the staff had been drawn to the movement through science and culture,

And felt that politics was inherently dirty and government was irredeemably compromised.

This group believed that by living lives of voluntary simplicity and pulling tools like those that filled the resolutely non-political Whole Earth Catalog,

They could force the world to adapt to them.

Their theory of change was modeled loosely on the Southern African Americans who sat at segregated lunch counters,

Drank from segregated lunch counters,

And sat in the front of the bus.

It ignored the role of strategic litigation,

Federal legislation,

And electoral politics in cementing lasting change.

Other staff members had worked in the Robert Kennedy,

Gene McCarthy,

And various congressional campaigns before Earth Day.

They believed that lasting progress could only come through institutional change.

The year 1970 was a congressional election year.

They had just organized the largest demonstration in the nation's history to support environmental values.

Former Lindsay organizer Steve Haft summed up this faction's attitude at an Environmental Action staff meeting.

We had 20 million people in the streets of an election year,

And you plan to sit out the election?

Are you nuts?

To square the circle,

Hayes proposed that the group not endorse any candidates,

But that it try to defeat 12 of the worst.

If having a terrible environmental record became a political liability,

It would inevitably lead to better environmental legislation.

Haft was selected to coordinate the Dirty Dozen campaign.

With just $50,

000 to defeat 12 incumbent members of the House,

The odds were long.

To improve the odds,

The group selected candidates who not only had lousy environmental records,

Which were plentiful,

But who also had won their most recent race by a narrow margin,

Who were on the wrong side of an important environmental issue in their districts,

And who lived in areas where talented Earth Day organizers resided.

In the end,

Seven of the original Dirty Dozen were defeated,

Five Republicans and two Democrats,

And the first of all was George Fallon,

Chairman of the hugely powerful House Public Works Committee.

Representative Pete McCloskey,

Earth Day co-chair,

Credits the Dirty Dozens' defeat of key congressional leaders with the unstoppable wave of environmental legislation that immediately followed.

The Clean Air Act,

Clean Water Act,

Endangered Species Act,

And others.

As the tone of major planned Earth Day activities shifted to become less academic and more confrontational,

And the Environmental Action Newsletter emphasized the need for broad structural change,

Interest in the event began to mount among college student activists.

One place where the interest in a teach-in was robust from the beginning was the University of Michigan.

The first teach-in on the Vietnam War had been held at the University of Michigan in March 1965,

And a group of students led by Doug Scott decided to mark the five-year anniversary with an environmental teach-in on March 11-14,

1970.

The Michigan teach-in presented a series of speeches dealing with various environmental problems,

Along with some debate over the best tactics and solutions.

No one,

Including the president of Dow Chemical,

Argued for more environmental destruction.

After the University of Michigan teach-in,

There was an explosion of interest on other college campuses.

Upwards of 2,

000 universities,

Colleges,

And junior colleges ultimately put on events.

By the end,

The national staff had a hard time merely keeping up with the colleges that called to register events.

The delicate line straddled by organizers was to attract seasoned activists who would demand far-reaching change without alienating the middle class,

Whose active participation and political support were seen as essential.

The greatest environmental insults were visited on the poor.

Factories and power plants were located in the poorest neighborhoods.

Freeways were plowed through the poorest neighborhoods.

Toxic waste dumps were situated in the poorest neighborhoods.

But these problems tended not to affect the middle class.

The solution was to promote an overarching concern with air and water pollution,

Which affected everyone,

While encouraging each community to pay attention to whatever other issues were of most concern to it.

Earth Day included events that focused on fighting freeways,

Protecting the ozone layer,

Organic food,

Whales and endangered species,

Oil spills,

The military use of Agent Orange in Vietnam,

Overpopulation,

Peeling lead paint in ghetto housing,

Opposition to the supersonic transport,

And myriad other topics.

Regional coordinators focused heavily on finding and enlisting the best local leadership in major metropolitan areas.

In winter of 1969 to 1970,

A group of students met at Columbia University to hear Dennis Hayes talk about his plans for Earth Day.

Among the group were Fred Kent,

Pete Grannis,

And Kristen and William Hubbard.

This group agreed to head up the New York City activities within the national movement.

Fred Kent took the lead in renting an office and recruiting volunteers.

The liberal Republican mayor of New York,

John Lindsay,

Saw the environment as an issue that could help unite his then-troubled city.

Moreover,

He viewed the environment as a progressive wedge issue that would position him as clearly distinct from President Nixon's ultra-conservative Southern strategy and a struggle for the soul of the Republican Party.

He became fully engaged in supporting the event,

And he delegated many of the talented young staff who had been drawn to his administration to help as well.

The 1970s were a period of substantial environmental legislation,

Including the Clean Air Act,

Clean Water Act,

Endangered Species Act,

Marine Mammal Protection Act,

Superfund,

Toxic Substances Control Act,

And the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

It had been the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency,

And the banning of DDT and of lead and gasoline.

Jimmy Carter was president.

The 1980 Earth Day effort was led by Mike McCabe and Byron Kennard,

And the general mood was festive and celebratory.

The principal Washington,

D.

C.

Event was a festival held in Lafayette Park across the street from the White House.

Mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting the status of environmental issues onto the world stage,

Earth Day activities in 1990 gave a huge boost to recycling efforts worldwide and helped pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Unlike the first Earth Day in 1970,

This 20th anniversary was waged with stronger marketing tools,

Greater access to television and radio,

And multi-million dollar budgets.

Two separate groups formed to sponsor Earth Day events in 1990.

The Earth Day 20 Foundation,

Assembled by Edward Fourier,

Project director of Earth Week in 1970,

And Earth Day 1990,

Assembled by Dennis Hayes,

National coordinator for Earth Day 1970.

Senator Gaylord Nelson,

The original founder of Earth Day,

Was honorary chairman for both groups.

The two did not combine forces over disagreements about leadership of combined organization and incompatible structures and strategies.

Among the disagreements,

Key Earth Day 20 founder-organizers were critical of Earth Day 1990 for including on their board Hewlett-Packard,

A company that at that time was the second biggest emitter of chlorofluorocarbons in Silicon Valley,

And refused to switch to alternative solvents.

In terms of marketing,

Earth Day 20 had a grassroots approach to organizing and relied largely on locally-based groups,

Like the National Toxics Campaign,

A Boston-based coalition of 1,

000 local groups concerned with industrial pollution.

Earth Day 1990 employed strategies including focus group testing,

Direct mail fundraising,

And email marketing.

As the millennium approached,

Hayes agreed to spearhead another campaign,

This time focusing on global warming and pushing for clean energy.

The April 22nd Earth Day in 2000 combined the big-picture feistiness of the first Earth Day with the international grassroots activism of Earth Day 1990.

For 2000,

Earth Day had the internet to help link activities around the world.

By the time April 22nd came around,

5,

000 environmental groups worldwide were on board,

Reaching out to hundreds of millions of people in a record 184 countries.

Events varied.

A talking drum chain traveled from village to village in Gabon,

Africa,

For example,

While hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington,

D.

C.

Reviews

Excellent, we all need to do what we can for our planet. Thanks for reading this Benjamin! 😻

Amazing. Would recommend to anyone with insomnia.