In the midst of Earth Day a few days ago I stumbled upon this news cast from the night of the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970!
Also check out this one!
http://www.hulu.com/watch/67649/earth-day-first-earth-day-april-22-1970
In comparing what actions American people took on Earth Day 1970 and again on Earth day 2011, I found that the actions took by people in 1970 were radically different than the actions taken by citizens today. From the news segment shot in 1790, we gather that the entire United States was in a state of protest. Downtown New York City was closed to traffic and students across the states wore gas masks to school in demonstration against the rise of the chemical corporations. The actions taken by America’s youth in 1970 mainly consisted of protest and direct action.
However, in contrast, much of the nightly news that aired on April 22, 2011 detailed how people were celebrating the day this year. Much of this news focused on how to better ‘green’ ones life, as well as how to be more of an environmentally friendly consumer.
I think these two contrasts can really illustrate how our priorities have shifted over the past 30 years or so. Likewise, the role we play in being good stewards of our environment has drastically changed as well. We have slowly moved from playing more assertive roles to playing a passive-aggressive type. Evidence for this can easily be seen by the actions Americans took just a few days ago during the last Earth Day. The popular things to do on this very special day were to ‘Buy more eco’ or ‘plant a tree’ or ‘pick up trash’. The messages here all relate to mitigation instead of addressing the root of the problem.
I agree that it is hard these days to discern how to act. Upon bombardment of global atrocities, what does one do first? The problem of the prioritization of our actions, I feel, directly relates on our risk assessments and, of course, to our materialistic consumptive patterns.
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Living in a Toxic World 
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April 27, 2011 at 9:12 pm
Devin
This video and the contrast of the two Earth Days is incredibly interesting, as well as disheartening. Over fifty years ago, people began protesting the way we were treating our earth. 50! And while so much time has past, nothing substantial has really been done. If anything, it’s been business as usual practices, and exponential growth of consumption, GHG emissions, and waste. Scientists were predicting global climate change decades ago, people were worried, and they attempted to stand up against the trend.
While by no means am I saying nothing positive has come of the protests and awareness, they initiated the Clean Air and Water acts, the EPA, a beginning base etc. However, overall we have done nothing to reverse our environmentally detrimental trend. Imagining what the world would be like today if society would have acted on the thoughts and respect for the earth demonstrated in the Youtube video is appealing, and relatively Utopia-like. If we could have gotten a strong start on fixing environmental issues back in the 70’s, I feel like we would have an energy portfolio dominated by renewable energy sources, a population where environmental responsibility/awareness is the norm, and be heading in a positive and sustainable direction. Instead we’re still fighting, still scared, and still bitching, hoping something will eventually get done.
May 2, 2011 at 9:33 pm
spond217
Ya I agree the first time I saw this I kinda said to myself, “Man, what happened?” Since I haven’t seen protests and large actions taken like those ones (in the states) in a long time! I was impressed with how big the first earth day celebrations were, and wish it kept its momentum. I feel like now a lot of people feel like we are just over our heads with environmental problems, or feel like a social revolution to drastically change some of our habits is impossible. I would argue against this, and think radical protests like the ones seen in the video would make a difference to spur on real action (not to mention a great way to get the publics interest and educate a lot of people).
May 17, 2011 at 1:29 pm
sgerlach
As well as the other comment authors, I do agree that there has been a shift in how our society takes action against important issues, or even just a shift in what those issues are seen to be. It is true, the 70’s were an era of explicit activism that resulted in large riots and the making of demands by many generations of individuals. However, I do not know if that means they necessarily accomplished all that much more than we do today.
The reason this post strikes me as so interesting is that my mother and I recently had a conversation about the differences among our generations. She was a young woman in the 70’s, a time period that saw her going to high school in what was the small town of Bend, attending college at OSU, and graduate school at OHSU, and while she does reflect that she had some friends who were very involved in the activism scene, she didn’t have many nor was she a part of it. What she more distinctly remembers is that of all the young people she knew, for the most part they did like a good child does and listened to her parents and the authorities without asking any questions at all, but rather because “it was right to do what you were told”. Even today, most of my friends parents claim that they lived their young adult lives in a similar way. So, I guess while the media and history books fame the 70’s through the decades activist persona, it might not actually hold true throughout the entire U.S. or to the smaller towns where many of the young people still did what Mom and Pop wanted.
What is interesting is for all the parents I know, they claim that the ability to question is the biggest difference between our generations- they view us as the ones who pose the important questions, who don’t just believe what we are told and instead challenge the things we find to be unjust and unworthy of our humanity. No, I don’t see many of us doing this in every day life and I definitely don’t think it happens often enough, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say we are greatly more complacent than our preceding generations. The biggest issue is that we have just become distracted by the “foofs” that society idolizes and supports. We care more about our quantity of clothing, cars, food, and tech items than our past generations. This results in that when we do question what is going on around us, our questions are diluted by the muddled material confusion of present day U.S. society and that our questions can sometimes lack conviction and follow up because we have become an “instant-gratification” nation.
Basically, I agree that the activism of the 70’s is enticing and we could use a little more of it today, but I do think that today if we could ask the right questions with the right amount of intensity, our generation would have a better chance at truly achieving a positive end result.