I just scanned all of my posts since 2008 and was appalled to see that this is my first Earth Day post, although I did a whole year on Climate Change.
I used to do a lot of activities on Earth Day. As a preschool teacher, we collected recycling all month and I hauled away a car full with the kids cheering. With older kids, we discussed nature and what we could do to help our planet. Children always want to help improve our planet. They are by nature optimistic.
The first Earth Day occurred in 1970. I had married my first “wasband” and he was anti-political, so we did nothing. The next few years I was scrambling to put my life back together, and I wasn’t doing a very good job. So didn’t really pay attention to it. Finally, in 1980, I joined a journalist in the area where I lived to create an Earth Day event. It was in a small town, and the national press was playing down Earth Day as if it were passé. I didn’t let it get to me, because I had children by then and it meant a lot to me to ensure that they had a better quality of life.
I returned to my home town in 1989 with the kids, and was very happy to see the coverage of Earth Day in1990. Each decade has become more important as our climate conditions deteriorate, and now I am fighting for my grandkids and my kids. I’m grateful it has become a worldwide movement.
When I worked in technology, I remember a theory about change. First are the pioneers, the people who are on the bleeding edge of change. They are often discredited. Then come the early users, then the masses, and occasionally even the Luddites that don’t want any change. We have made it to the third stage, hoorah! People all over the world are solving our problems, fighting the forces that would condemn our planet to death. We can solve our problems, we just have to get past denial and work together!
