The year was 1970 and Spring had just begun. Newspapers carried stories of smog (remember that word?) hanging over the Los Angles valley, of America’s cities as being toxic. The industrial revolution had come and gone and left an America wealthy and comfortable with its yield. We had produced, manufactured and developed with a frenzy of hyper progress that took us into the throne of world leadership. The USA had become the first industrial giant.

As much of the rest of the modern world tried to catch us, to equal us, some of our more enlightened minds looked around and took notice of the by products of that success. In the air, in the water and on the land were the waste of more than a century of an accelerated growth that never took off the blinders. Our country, our environment, our world was polluted! We weren’t the only country casting off its waste into its own back yard, nor can it be said that we led the way but we certainly were in first place getting there. The proof was all around. The water was becoming un-potable, the air un-breathable and the land downright disgusting. The same brilliance that took our species from the dark ages and into the industrial age with all its amenities began to consider the recklessness and what to do about it. (Cue: Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man”) The greedy and ignorant stood obstacle on this new route but voices cried out and ears listened. Something needed to be done or this world we lived on would very soon be too toxic to live on. An honest fear was born.

The first Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970. It had been in the planning for about a year or so by men and women the world over – but mostly of the good ole US of A. – of standing that knew before most the seriousness of the growing problem. This shared concern was spoken of during get togethers and seminars and everyone quickly agreed that something had to be done and had to be done fast or we would actually choke on our own waste. See: Wikipedia article. Earth Day was born. The predictions at that first Earth Day shook the world with their grave seriousness and all though they were often over inflated they were, in their basic element, on the mark. While the polar caps did not melt by the year 2000 causing the oceans to rise to the 20th floor of the Empire State Building (one such outlandish claim made back then) the caps are indeed melting and doing so at a noticeable rate. The date in April has become somewhat sacred and revered by more and more each year. Today the movement is growing at a faster rate and gaining speed exponentially. Things are getting done.

Those men and women of that first Earth Day began something and that something is saving our world. I can take pride in the fact that I was there in 1970 and honor those that were there with me. More importantly, I honor those that put it together and started this yearly event that is literally saving our world.