When the first Earth Day “celebration” took place in 1970, I was attending a newly formed four year college that itself had just “graduated” from being a “Junior”. It was on a wind-blown hill, with few new buildings, that the first gathering of environmentally concerned people met. Somehow this college had the foresight to create an Ecology Department at their young age and placed at its head a red haired, bearded, burly person. The women “loved” him, he was an excellent teacher, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect, and the program was an immediate success.

Earth Day was an idea proposed and promoted by Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin after having seen the damage caused by a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. Many though that it would be a one-time event. Originally a “teach-in” and celebration, it has been claimed that it lead to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air Act, The Water Quality Improvement Act, Endangered Species Act, and so forth. It gave many different groups a day to come together, and with their increased mass, wield power and get the world to acknowledge the growing problems around us. It didn’t hurt that, despite all of his other shortcomings, Richard Nixon was a “friend” to the environment.

So What Has Happened?

Though we will still celebrate Earth Day on April 22, it has been usurped by something called “The March For Science”. The following Saturday, April 29, something called “The People’s Climate March” is being held, and confuses the issues. For me, the Science March was a good fit with Earth Day considering the current administration’s scorn of the scientific community and the fact of human involved climate change. Hand in Glove.

So what is “The People’s Climate March”? It originally took place on September 21, 2014 in New York City, as a response to (but not a protest against) the scheduled U.N. Climate Summit to be held on the 23rd. OK, that’s all well and good. I do not see the obvious conflict of the two events as a good thing. Bill McKibben and his group want to have their event on the 100th day of the Trump Reign of Terror, but I fear it will take energy from the Earth Day/Science March collaboration.

It appears that I will have to travel to participate in Earth Day/Science March events, as I have not been able to locate any locally. The following weekend, I may attend local Climate March events, but I feel more bound to the April 22nd date. We have such a long and storied history. I wish Bill McKibben hadn’t felt it necessary to have his “own” event, and maybe harming both while at it.

While there is much to speak out about concerning this abomination that holds deed to Our White House, we should not be fragmenting what energies we have available. We will need all that can be mustered. It is going to be a very long four years.