Today is Earth Day. If you were born before 1965 or so, you probably remember a time when there was no such thing. It was a time of smoky bars, trash littering the roadsides, choking smog, and Superfund sites masquerading as playgrounds, among other things. Rivers regularly caught on fire.
The Cuyahoga River Caught Fire at Least a Dozen Times, but No One Cared Until 1969
“The river was a scary little thing,” Donovan says. “There was a general rule that if you fell in, God forbid, you would go immediately to the hospital.”
And then publicity turned what was just the latest in a long line of “oops, the water’s on fire” stories into the seed of a new movement. The first Earth Day took place in 1970. The Environmental Protection Agency was established in 1970. The idea that maybe we didn’t have to live in a toxic stew of pollution and dangerous chemicals slowly began to take hold. Crazy, I know!
Are there still plenty of places we could improve? Of course. But we’ve come a long way, and our successes are proof that we can take the next step, and the next.
Today, and every day.
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