Earth Day 2012: Environmental Movement at a Crossroads Photo
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via email. This Sunday marks the 42nd anniversary of Earth Day.
I was privileged to be legislative director for Senator Gaylord
Nelson, who had the vision in 1970 for Earth Day’s “national
teach-in on the environment,” and who helped make that vision a
reality. Over the past four decades, I have witnessed and
cheered the growth and development of the modern environmental
movement. Yet, even as the achievements of the movement are
honored, we should also be honest: viewed with any serious
attention to long and deep trends, the environment is in serious
and ever-growing danger. This is in no way to minimize the
successes of the movement. There have been significant gains in
connection with air quality, the incidence of lead, and water
pollution, to name three issues that were the subjects of an
explosion of public concern around the time of the original
Earth Day. Between 1970 and 2010, c