[Scpg] (Re) Occupy Earth Day?

[LBSALTZMAN at aol.com]

_http://www.earthday.org/earth-day-history-movement_ 
(http://www.earthday.org/earth-day-history-movement)  
Food for thought as  Earth Day approaches. (Re) Occupy Earth Day anyone? 
Watching the video is a real  eye opener. Earth Day started as a community 
teach-in and protest and has  degenerated in many locations into an expensive, 
increasingly commercialized  exercise in corporate greenwashing. 
Larry  Saltzman 
Sustainability  Activist 
http://www.earthday.org/earth-day-history-movement 
The idea came to  Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator 
from Wisconsin, after witnessing the ravages of the 1969  massive oil spill in 
Santa  Barbara, California.  Inspired by the student anti-war movement, he 
realized that if he could infuse  that energy with an emerging public 
consciousness about air and water pollution,  it would force environmental 
protection onto the national political agenda.  Senator Nelson announced the idea 
for a “national teach-in on the environment”  to the national media; 
persuaded Pete McCloskey, a conservation-minded  Republican Congressman, to serve as 
his co-chair; and recruited Denis Hayes as  national coordinator. Hayes 
built a national staff of 85 to promote events  across the land. 
As a result, on the  22nd of April, 20 million Americans took to the 
streets, parks, and auditoriums  to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable 
environment in massive coast-to-coast  rallies. Thousands of colleges and 
universities organized protests against the  deterioration of the environment. Groups 
that had been fighting against oil  spills, polluting factories and power 
plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps,  pesticides, freeways, the loss of 
wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife  suddenly realized they shared common 
values. 
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