Earth Day is celebrating its 40th Anniversary this year.
I became curious as to how Earth Day began.
After touring an oil spill that occurred off the coast of Santa Barbara, CA in 1969, a Wisconsin Senator named Gaylord Nelson was reading an article about "teach-ins" that were being organized by college students and faculty from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor to raise awareness about the Vietnam War.
He thought about colleges possibly hosting a "teach-in" for the environment.
On November 11, 1969, Gaylord Nelson and his staff announced that April 22, 1970 would be the day of the "National Teach-In on the Crisis of the Environment." They chose that date because it fit college schedules between spring break and final exams.
Surpassing their wildest expectations, Nelson and his staff estimated 20 million Americans from 10,000 elementary and high schools, 2,000 colleges, and over 1,000 communities took action on April 22, 1970.
When Senator Nelson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995, President Clinton noted, "as the founder of Earth Day, he is the grandfather of all that grew out of that event — the Environmental Protection Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act. He also set a standard for people in public service to care about the environment and try to do something about it."
Green tip of the week: Consider attending an Earth Day activity/event to help or learn something new.
Here's the link to SJSU campus events starting on Monday:
http://sites.google.com/a/sjsusustainabilityweek.org/www/program
Next Week: I'll highlight some of the events from SJSU's Sustainability Week, including keynote speaker Mayor Chuck Reed.
I have been told that Gaylord Nelson graduated from SJSU, San Jose State College at that time, from the College of Social Science in 1939.
http://www.nelsonearthday.net
A colleague mentioned that the 1970 Earth Day at SJSU was a big deal on campus and mentioned a car being buried.
Here is a Spartan Daily article from April 2008 that discusses the burial of the 1970 yellow Ford Maverick.
http://media.www.thespartandaily.com/media/storage/paper852/news/2008/04/24/News/A.Witness.To.A.Car.Funeral-3346453.shtml
The San Francisco Chronicle published a more in depth article about the car burial this past Tuesday complete with a photo of the car in a 12 foot pit.
ReplyDeleteFor those of us that were wondering if the car was still buried on campus...the answer is no.
It was exhumed one year later for publicity for a ballot measure to bring public transportation to the Santa Clara County.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/20/DDG21BST18.DTL