The Passing of Earth Day, 1970 - 2017
From the Dirty Dozen to the Dirty Seven
A young man from Wisconsin, Gaylord Nelson, attended San Jose State College in his youth and fell in love with California's fertile valleys and its magnificent Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. He backpacked the John Muir Trail and particularly revered the mountains from Shasta in the north down to Mt. Whitney on the South, with its four great national parks, Lassen, Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon. Years later, in 1969, now a U.S. Senator, he would tour the Golden State again. While there he conceived the idea of an Earth Day to celebrate the Earth and address the problems mankind was creating.
Nelson wanted Earth Day to be bi-partisan and bi-cameral, a day of study of the problems of pollution, endangered species, their habitat and the unbridled development that plagued the nation in 1970.
Nelson asked the only reputed Republican environmentalist in the House of Representatives to be his Co-Chair and recruited Stanford Student Body President, 22 year-old Denis Hayes, to direct a staff of young people to organize teach-ins on environmental issues for April 22nd. Business leaders like Wall Street's Dan Lufkin and Sid Howe, Chairman of the Conservation Foundation, raised a little money, with Hayes' staff refusing to accept donations from polluters like Exxon and Dow Chemical.
The young people zeroed in on devastating pollutants like the defoliant Agent Orange, and DDT which was threatening the American Bald Eagle with extinction.
Earth Day came and went. It was a day of joyous celebration and study around the nation, from New York to San Francisco.
But the young organizers of Earth Day didn't quit. Recognizing the need to advance new US policies through Congress, they held a single press conference, naming 12 Members of the House, two Democrats and ten Republicans, as "The Dirty Dozen," vowing their defeat at the polls. Few took them seriously. The elderly deacons of the House of Representatives dismissed them as "just a bunch of kids."
But the kids chose to organize. On election day they descended in the hundreds on the targeted districts, turning out usually-uncaring voters in huge numbers.
The nation awoke in November, 1970, to the astonishing news that seven of the Dirty Dozen, two Democrats and five of the ten Republicans on the list had been defeated by the work of young students, many of them too young to vote.
The result was startling. When Congress convened in January, 1971, a majority of both parties in both Houses claimed to now be dedicated environmentalists. A b-partisan environmental majority had emerged.
Over the next four years, with a Democratic Congress and a Republican President, landmark legislation were passed on a bi-partisan basis. The Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, protection of Marine mammals, coastal zones, and The Endangered Species Act were enacted into law, with Nixon creating the Environmental Protection Agency.
In following years, thousands of acres of new National Parks, monuments, wilderness and wildlife refuges were created for public enjoyment.
By 2016, Earth Day on April 22nd had come to be an annual celebration in over 175 countries. The United Nations chose that date for signing of the the historic treaty on global warming.
The years of cooperation ended in 2016, however, with the election of President Trump and the seating in the House of Representatives of a new "Dirty Seven." The seven collectively represented the entire Sierra Nevada mountain range and its foothills, the same area which had inspired Senator Nelson to create Earth Day in 1970.
Regrettably all are Republicans, and all claim to be dedicated to the removal of environmental protections and the Republican platform goal of giving away federal lands. All support the Trump budget cuts to end scientific research into global warming and the slashing of budgets for the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
The "Dirty Seven" have it within their power to make Earth Day a forgotten memory. In the past few weeks they have voted unanimously to make it easier to give away federal lands. They have voted in conference to terminate the House Ethics Commission. They have voted to allow mining wastes to pollute rivers and streams, and to allow the shooting of bears from helicopters in Alaskan federal game refuges. They have agreed to support Trump's proposals to ease air pollution regulations and to slash the budgets of the EPA and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
They have started serious work to eviscerate the Endangered Species Act. By next year at this time, its protection of species and their habitat may be gone.
The Dirty Seven are Doug LaMalfa of Shasta County, Tom McClintock of Nevada County, Jeff Denham of Modesto, Paul Cook of Inyo County, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and David Valadeo, both of Bakersfield, and finally there is the infamous Devin Nunes of Fresno, the man who cancelled the hearings of his Intelligence Committee rather than further embarrass Trump with investigation into the Russian cyberattack on the 2016 election process.
Hopefully, a new generation of passionate students will rise up in 2018 to name and defeat not just the "Dirty Seven." but perhaps "Dirty Thirty," or even "Dirty Fifty," forcing Congress to re-establish bipartisan cooperation and balanced environmental protections, with a return of efforts to slow, if not reverse, global warming.
It would be a fitting tribute to the late Senator Nelson, Denis Hayes and the kids of the first Earth Day of 1970.
Pete McCloskey
Republican Co-Chair
Earth Day, 1970
Member of Congress, 1967-83.