Primed and ready for another Epic Earth Day!

On April 22, 1970,  the idea of “Earth Day” brought 20 million Americans out into the streets to proclaim their love for our precious planet. This idea galvanized all of the American People, who for so long had been watching our beloved lands and waters being sacrificed to “The Cost of Doing Business.”

Rivers were filthy, bays and estuaries smelled like sewers, hills were scarred, valleys and canyons were serving as industrial dumps. Almost anywhere you looked you could find the ugly evidence of Business-as-Usual running wild. And finally after a few “over the top” events; rivers on fire, oil-slicked beaches, and chemical-saturated neighborhoods, the public was ready to say “Enough!”

The Bell was rung – and soon thereafter, the public servants began crafting legislation that expressed this outpouring of public sentiment for the good of the planet. Within months. President Nixon proposed and the signed an Executive Order establishing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This precipitated a raft of other Acts signed into law – orbiting the vast public concern for this place we call “Home.” The Clean Water Act, the Marin Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act were all enacted by 98% of Congress, and signed into law by a Republican President.

Agencies were coordinated to administer the task: The Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the Marine Mammal Commission, and the Department of the Interior all coagulated and organized anew (or out of handfuls of disparate Federal agencies) to manage and regulate all US Federal assets and responsibilities. All toward the objective of preserving, conserving, and regulating our relationships with our homeland and surrounding seas.

Of course the Captains of Industry were not happy about all of this, and have been spending the last 50 years hacking away at the bulkheads of conservation. (Stemming their efforts is why OCR is in business, after all…)

But Industry, having thrown Billions of Dollars at their complaint has provided them a modicum of success. The previous Administration was saturated in Oil, environmental conservation has become a divisive partisan issue, and while the planet burns, efforts are afoot to expand our reliance on fossil fuel.

Are we ready for another epic Earth Day? I, for one, am primed…