The Truth About Earth Day

When the first Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970, the founders — U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-WI) and activist Denis Hayes — said its purpose was to draw public attention to what was at the time “the deteriorating environment in the United States,” according to Nelson.

To be fair, in making that assessment of America’s environmental situation 55 years ago, Nelson and Hayes weren’t wrong. Compared to today, the air and water were frankly filthy. 

Cars at the time still ran on leaded gasoline and spewed massive amounts of particulate matter into the air each time they were driven.

The Cuyahoga River which runs through Cleveland was so filthy with pollution from oil refineries and raw sewage that it literally caught on fire in 1969, setting off a blaze that provided weeks of visuals on national network news programs.

In January of that same year, an oil platform offshore Santa Barbara, California caused a major oil spill, leaking and estimated 3 million gallons of oil into the Pacific Ocean that ultimately washed up on the adjacent beaches. At the time, it was the largest single oil spill in U.S. history.

Thanks to lax environmental regulations, air quality throughout the United States was poor, and was a horror show in many parts of the country, especially areas that were home to oil refineries, coal-fired power plants, and other heavy industrial plants.

In addition to those realities, forests were disappearing due to over-logging and an array of major animal species recognizable to most Americans — bald eagles, grizzly bears, grey wolves, and whooping cranes, among many others – had been massively depleted, to the point at which their survival as species had become endangered.

It was amid all of that environmental degradation that the first Earth Day was held. Unfortunately, the movement behind the day quickly fell prey to green hucksters looking to sell books and conflict groups looking raise millions of dollars from naive donors by promoting the most fright-filled scenarios they could concoct.

Some of the most absurd claims were cataloged by Mark J. Perry, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, in April, 2020.

Paul Ehrlich, author of the best-selling book, “The Population Bomb,” wrote in the April, 1970 issue of Mademoiselle that, “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.” Obviously, that didn’t happen.

Earth Day founder Hayes added his voice to Ehrlich’s fright scenario, claiming in the spring, 1970 issue of The Living Wilderness that, “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.” It wasn’t, though.

In January 1970, Life reported, “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….” Yeah, no.

Not to be left out of this hurricane of hyperbole, Sen. Nelson himself wrote in Look that, “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.”

But here we are, 55 years later, and most of those species remain among the living, which is a blessing. It often gets left unsaid, but that and other improvements to America’s – and the world’s – environment can be in part attributed to the attention-raising efforts spurred into action by that very first Earth Day.

America’s air and water both are vastly cleaner than they were in 1970 — anyone who says otherwise is frankly a liar. It isn’t close. In fact, they are both so much cleaner that the hucksters and conflict groups were forced to drop advocacy about real pollution and shift over to carbon dioxide a quarter century ago in order to keep the money flowing.

So, while we love to make fun of Earth Day — I enjoy doing it myself, to be honest — the reality is that it has been a rousing success. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could convince its modern promoters to declare victory?

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.