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GUEST EDITORIAL Earth Day 1990: Society’s challenge For many of my generation, involvement with serious issues-adult issues--began with some form of unconventional politics. Passive disobedience and freedom rides in support of civil rights. Endless town meetings about Vietnam. Wearing gas masks down Fifth Avenue on Earth Day. Picketing a state legislature in support of the Equal Rights Amendment. Breaching the exclusion zone around Seabrook or Diablo Canyon nuclear plants. Blocking a train carrying fissionable material to the Rocky Flats bomb factory in Colorado. We were impatient and idealistic. The first generation with strontium-90 in its bones (from atmospheric nuclear testing), we trusted no one over 30. Outraged over the state of the world we were inheriting, we vowed that we would pass on to our children a world that was peaceful, just, and ecologically sustainable. That was 20 years ago. Today, the angry young women and men of Earth Day-who poured sewage on corporate carpets and pounded polluting automobiles apart with sledgehammers-are now middle-aged and still no closer to their utopian vision. If anything, perhaps, they are further away. ’henty years after Earth Day, those of us who set out to change the world are poised on the threshold of utter failure. Measured on virtually any scale, the world is in worse shape. than it was 20 years ago. Lepsons learned
Recognizing this, more than a year and a half ago I wrote an article in which I proposed a global Earth Day to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the 6rst Earth Day. ’ b o months after the article appeared, a dozen national environmentalleaders asked me to take a leave of absence from my legal practice to coordinate the Earth Day 1990 campaign. At this time last year, Earth Day 1990 was nothing more than a concept. Now it is an overburdened staff of 40 in Palo Alto, California, a National Board of Directors well over 120 in number with representatives from every sector of American society; a luminous International Board of Sponsors spanning every continent; and a field organization with hundreds of grassroots coordinators spread across the country. In little more than a year, Earth Day 1990 has gone from the drawing board 0013.936XI9010924.0403502.5010
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to being a huge, global coalition determined to turn the tide in the battle to pull the planet back from the brink of ecological destruction. The concept The concept of Earth Day originated in America. However, the problems that Earth Day addresses are global in nature. Where Earth Day 1970 was the catalyst for the creation of the modern American environmental movement, Earth Day 1990 is designed to catalyze the creation of a truly global environmental movement and to make the 1990s a decade of striking environmental achievements. Unfortunately, it took the discovery of holes in the ozone layer, widespread fires in the Amazon, and convincing proof of the threats posed by global climate change to make the environment an issue worthy of international press interest and pride of place at the most recent summit meeting of the leaders of seven major industrial powers. Now that environmental issues have captured the attention of our politicians and the press, we are presented with an unprecedented opportunity to translate public concern about the environment into concerted action. Earth Day 1990’s campaign will send a clear signal to world leaders that the time is nigh to set aside narrow self-interest and to focus on the global environmental issues that threaten the existence of the human race. The time has come to focus our collective energies on making “sustainable development” more than a pleasing rhetorical phrase.
The challenge There is no evidence that our leaders have the intelligence, the integrity, and the guts to lead us into a new era. The leadership has to come from us. We need, as a first step, to make our own lives congruent with our espoused values. For most of us, there is mom for improvement in virtually all spheres. We should conserve energy in the easy ways, such as by replacing incandescent light bulbs with folded fluorescents which are five times as efficient, insulating our water heater, and doing laundry in cold water. Then we should do the more expensive and difficult things, such as superinsulating our dwellings and replacing existing furnaces and appliances with more efficient models. Environ. SCi.Technoi., Vol. 24, No. 4, 1880 403
We should pledge to make efficiency a dominant conOn Earth Day, we expect to have 100 million p p l e cern when considering transportation. Is mass transit around the world demanding the one basic right of all an option? Carpooling? Bicycling? It might mean a bit species: the right to a future. In response, we expect the of a delay and a loss of total independence, but rememworld‘s governments to move past the rhetorical stages ber, if you take a bus to work instead of your car, you and actively begin addressing the wide array of urgent, and your fellow passengers are. getting over 180 miles important problems facing the planet. However, govto the gallon. ernment action will never be the whole solution. FunIn the home, we should install low-flow shower damental societal change away from our current wasteheads and toilet dams. In o w yards, we should plant ful practices and toward a more sustainable future will native vegetation that requires only minimal amounts of only come a b u t because of a commitment at the individual level to “practice what we preach.” If we can water. We should search out environmentally sensible adapt our own lives to reflect our concerns for the products including soaps, cosmetics, and recycled paper goods, and avoid anything packaged in Styrofoam environment and hold our elected leaders accountable or plastic. for their promises, then, perhaps, we truly can make We should eat food from lower on the food chain and the 1990s the “Decade of Environmental Action.” develop a preference for organic products grown nearby. We should recycle our metals, glass, paper, and plastics, and compost our kitchen and yard waste. Small steps such as the ones I’ve listed can, cumulatively, have profound impacts. For example, if everyone used the most efficient refrigerators, we could save an amount of energy equivalent to the generating capacity of 12 nuclear plants. Using the most efficient cars available could cut our gasoline consumption in half. Every year, we send more iron and steel to our dumps than we use in the entire automobile industry. : Denis Hayes is chair and CEO of With the amount of aluminum we throw away every K2 Earth Day I990 and WRS the three months, we could replace our entire fleet of air- 5x NarioMl Coordinatorfor thejirst planes. ffinhDay in J970.
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Environ. SCi.TeChnOl., Vol. 24, NO. 4, 1990
