Earth Day 1970, with Walter Cronkite

[Faygo Kid]

I remember it well - I was a freshman at Wayne State University in Detroit, and it was a beautiful day. Dogs in bandanas chasing Frisbees, bell bottoms and miniskirts everywhere, Let It Be and Spirit In The Sky on the charts, and we have done virtually NOTHING as our planet has been wrecked. If we had acted 44 years ago, our planet could be healthy.

Oh, and Kent State happened a week later. That was a totally different vibe, to say the least.

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[Dustlawyer]

1. K&R! How naive we were, yet cognizant even back then of the finite nature of our planet

with thoughts about what we could do to preserve our planet for the future. Little did we know that soon, propaganda would label us Tree Huggers, Hippies or Whale Lovers, and we would be dismissed as a left wing nut jobs. Now, not enough of us feel we could make a difference, and we sit and watch helplessly as our weather goes nuts and no one is listening!

[swilton]

2. Even

Oklahoma University closed the campus on that day......

I remember my Physics (for non-science majors) professor telling the class that he either rode his bike to work or (when it was too far to ride) he took public transportation....We all had to write essays on the environment. He also told us that day would be historic.

So many opportunities lost

[reACTIONary]

3. Our high school ecology club...

... loaded up a bus and headed to a local college (Buckminster Fuller was resident there at that time) for the teach in. Mind expanding, consciousness raising, radical!

[panfluteman]

4. A Happy and Groovy Earth Day to You!

Ah yes - Earth Day! Astrologically, the Sun has just entered the sign of Taurus, the sign of Mother Earth and Mother Nature. No doubt, that's why this day was chosen as Earth Day - that, and the numerological significance of having both the number of the month and the number of the date be in feminine even numbers, symbolizing the primordial feminine Creatrix, Mother Gaia.

I don't quite remember exactly what I was doing on that first ever Earth Day back in 1970, but I was in the process of finishing up my senior year in high school, over at the American School in Japan in Tokyo. Unfortunately, I could not tune in to Mr. Cronkite on TV.

Looking at this video, what struck me was how easy and simple our planetary cleanup problems were way back then compared to the horrors that we face today, and how much easier it was for citizens to do something about it. Looking back on that first Earth Day as it was portrayed in this video, you feel a kind of Garden of Eden sense of primordial simplicity and innocence. At least back then, the basic democratic machinery of our government was much more intact than it is now, and hence, the ability of the people to act and bring about change was so much greater, it seems. Not only have our environmental problems themselves increased exponentially as we have let one opportunity after another for exercising our stewardship of the environment pass us by, but right wing billionaires like the Koch brothers have so rigged the government in their favor that the people are almost powerless to do anything to stop it.

Alas - I am quickly sinking deeper and deeper into a morass of hopelessness and despair! What do you guys think?