Earth Days Page #5

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and on your ability to pollute.

That photograph of the Earth

in this vast sea of space--

that did pretty much

the same thing

for the whole planet.

If the people really understood

that in the lifetime

of their children

they're going to have destroyed

the quality of the air

and the water

all over the world,

and, uh, perhaps made the globe

unlivable in a half century,

they'd do something about it.

But this is not well understood.

Senator Gaylord Nelson

was one of my very best friends.

He was a great governor

of Wisconsin,

and he was a great

conservationist.

He was the one that said,

"Well, why not have teach-ins

about the environment

all over the country?"

And this is what became

the first Earth Day in 1970.

Gaylord cared passionately

about conservation issues

throughout his entire career.

...an efficient, clean, cheap,

mass transportation,

which is what this country

must come to.

He had decided to set up

a steering committee

and actually make this

begin to happen.

He'd enlisted already

Pete McCloskey,

a Republican congressman

from California,

who was an ardent

environmentalist

to co-chair it with him.

The preservation of the environment

is going to have to be

a very top item.

For that reason, I, uh--

am just delighted to support it.

The Republican party

in my lifetime

had been an environmental party,

but, man, by 1970, it was

hard to find Republicans

that put the environment

anywhere

in their top five

list of priorities.

But Gaylord, he wanted it

to be bipartisan.

So, he said, "Pete,

would you be co-chairman?"

"Would I be co-chairman?"

It was-- it meant everything

that I wanted to do

in the world.

So, I think it was in

December-January of 1970,

we hired Denis Hayes

to be the director.

And Denis comes to Washington

with about 20 or 30 kids

that are about 18 to 22

at the oldest.

And they send out newsletters

all over the country

to every student body president,

10,000 high schools,

a couple of thousand colleges.

"Would you like to have

an Earth Day on April 22?"

What we were

trying to do was to create

a brand-new public consciousness

that would cause the rules

of the game to change.

It was somewhat ironic for

something called Earth Day

to be entirely focused

on the United States.

But remember, we had

virtually no money.

We had incredible aspirations,

but there was no World Wide Web.

There was no internet.

There were no blogs.

There was no e-mail.

There was no instant messaging.

There was none of the kind

of web activism

that is possible today.

The newsletters that were sent

to people across the country

were all printed for us for free

by the United Autoworkers.

The United Autoworkers

were the largest,

single contributors financially,

and otherwise to Earth Day.

Ever notice that

even on a clear day in New York,

there's a dark cloud

hanging over your head?

Soot and carbon.

Ever take a good look

at the Hudson River?

How'd you like to drink it?

Half the sun in New York

is cut out

by the carbon from cars.

Pollution comes right through

your air conditioner,

and you inhale more

than a pack a day,

even if you don't smoke.

And there are already more rats

in New York than people.

By 1980, you're probably

going to need a gasmask

and a flashlight

to get to the office.

There won't be any birds

or bees or trees.

Unless we stop

what we're doing,

we're going to kill ourselves.

April 22 is Earth Day.

It can be the beginning

of the end of pollution

or the beginning of the end.

Mr. McCloskey, isn't this

just really a mask,

to cover up the major

problems of Vietnam

and Civil Rights

in this country?

Well, won't this in fact deflect

people from Vietnam as a cause?

Why an environmental teach-in?

Now, what's the point in putting

more money down the drain

in this kind of stuff?

That might involve cutting back

on things like air-conditioning?

Are you going to get

liberal support for this?

How will you deal, in effect,

with the women's liberation

movements?

Is there any concern in your mind

that this might just be a-a fad?

There are practically

no black people involved.

Okay, we are out of time.

Thank you very much gentleman

for being here with us today

on Face the Nation.

By and large,

we created a juggernaut

that-that everybody

was willing to embrace,

at least stylistically

and superficially.

Though a great many of them

did not begin to understand

the depth of the changes

that we were seeking.

So, we were not

particularly shocked

by the fact that, in his 1970

State of the Union speech,

Nixon brought up

environmental issues.

Restoring nature to its

natural state is a cause

beyond party

and beyond factions.

It has become a common cause of

all the people of this country.

It is a cause of particular

concern to young Americans,

because they, more than we,

will reap the grim consequences

of our failure to act

on programs,

which are needed now if we are

going to prevent disaster later.

I know from

some of his aides I talked to,

there was a big argument,

and they said, "Look,

this is a powerful movement

"and it's going

to get more powerful.

"There is an Earth Day coming up

in a few weeks.

Proclaim that you want the 1970s

to be the environmental decade."

Nixon did it!

The Earth Day offices

were wiretapped by the FBI.

And interestingly, also

by military intelligence.

Lord knows what they thought

we were doing.

Do you consider yourselves

revolutionaries?

Is this a revolutionary

movement?

What are you

talking about?

A new, uh... a new

form of government?

Uh, uh, a new

religion?

What are you talking about?

What are your priorities?

It was wild and exciting

and out of control.

And the sort of thing

that lets you know

that you've really got

something big happening.

The White House invited the

national organizers of Earth Day

to drop by for a chat.

They refused.

Christopher DeMuth,

the President's

23-year-old assistant

for environmental affairs,

blames Denis Hayes the National

Coordinator of Earth Day.

Saying that Hayes was

more interested

in an anti-Nixon publicity

stance than in ensuring

that the observance was

truly nonpartisan.

At the time

that it all happened,

I think Nixon,

who by all accounts

did not have

an environmental nerve ending

anywhere in his body, viewed

this as a political chess move.

See, that's-- we'll try

to play all cameras.

I'll play a little bit,

uh, moving around here

as we go along in case

you'll want to use it.

Okay.

I have sent

to the Congress today

a sweeping set of proposals

to clean up

our nation's air and water.

This is the most far-reaching

and comprehensive message

on conservation and restoration

of our natural resources

ever submitted to the Congress

by a President

of the United States.

We are taking these actions, not

in some distant future, but now,

because we know

that it is now or never.

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