How the First Earth Day Came About

How the First Earth Day Came About
By Senator Gaylord Nelson, Founder of Earth Day

What was the purpose of Earth Day? How did it start? These are the questions I am most frequently asked.

Actually, the idea for Earth Day evolved over a period of seven years starting in 1962. For several years, it had been troubling me that the state of our environment was simply a non-issue in the politics of the country. Finally, in November 1962, an idea occurred to me that was, I thought, a virtual cinch to put the environment into the political "limelight" once and for all. The idea was to persuade President Kennedy to give visibility to this issue by going on a national conservation tour. I flew to Washington to discuss the proposal with Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who liked the idea. So did the President. The President began his five-day, eleven-state conservation tour in September 1963. For many reasons the tour did not succeed in putting the issue onto the national political agenda. However, it was the germ of the idea that ultimately flowered into Earth Day.

I continued to speak on environmental issues to a variety of audiences in some twenty-five states. All across the country, evidence of environmental degradation was appearing everywhere, and everyone noticed except the political establishment. The environmental issue simply was not to be found on the nation's political agenda. The people were concerned, but the politicians were not.

After President Kennedy's tour, I still hoped for some idea that would thrust the environment into the political mainstream. Six years would pass before the idea that became Earth Day occurred to me while on a conservation speaking tour out West in the summer of 1969. At the time, anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, called "teach-ins," had spread to college campuses all across the nation. Suddenly, the idea occurred to me - why not organize a huge grassroots protest over what was happening to our environment?

I was satisfied that if we could tap into the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse the student anti-war energy into the environmental cause, we could generate a demonstration that would force this issue onto the political agenda. It was a big gamble, but worth a try.

At a conference in Seattle in September 1969, I announced that in the spring of 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment and invited everyone to participate. The wire services carried the story from coast to coast. The response was electric. It took off like gangbusters. Telegrams, letters, and telephone inquiries poured in from all across the country. The American people finally had a forum to express its concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes, and air - and they did so with spectacular exuberance. For the next four months, two members of my Senate staff, Linda Billings and John Heritage, managed Earth Day affairs out of my Senate office.

Five months before Earth Day, on Sunday, November 30, 1969, The New York Times carried a lengthy article by Gladwin Hill reporting on the astonishing proliferation of environmental events:

"Rising concern about the environmental crisis is sweeping the nation's campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam...a national day of observance of environmental problems...is being planned for next spring...when a nationwide environmental 'teach-in'...coordinated from the office of Senator Gaylord Nelson is planned...."

It was obvious that we were headed for a spectacular success on Earth Day. It was also obvious that grassroots activities had ballooned beyond the capacity of my U.S. Senate office staff to keep up with the telephone calls, paper work, inquiries, etc. In mid-January, three months before Earth Day, John Gardner, Founder of Common Cause, provided temporary space for a Washington, D.C. headquarters. I staffed the office with college students and selected Denis Hayes as coordinator of activities.

Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.

http://earthday.envirolink.org/history.html

Perennials for your flower garden By Yvonne Cunnington

PERENNIAL PLANTS FOR SUNNY GARDENS

Bearded iris - Modern cultivars with better color, more blooms

Cranesbill (perennial geranium) - charming and indispensable garden plants

Cushion spurge - Long-blooming flowers for spring with Euphorbia polychroma

Daylilies - Hardy, easy-to-grow favorites

Dianthus 'Firewitch' - A perfect low-growing spring flower

Echinacea - New-look coneflowers

False blue indigo - A gorgeous, easy-care native

Geranium Rozanne - 2008 Perennial Plant of the Year

Lavender - Makes an elegant edging plant

Lilies (Lilium) - Beautiful blooms that mix well with other flowers

Nepeta 'Walker's Low' - Handsome catmint

Peonies - Colorful, fragrant and fabulous

Roses - Discover the allure of rose gardening

Russian sage - Here's one for hot, dry gardens

Shasta daisy - Classic flower, easy-care plant

Siberian iris - Easy-to-grow early-season flowers

PERENNIAL PLANTS FOR SHADE
Ferns - terrific foliage and deer-proof too

Helleborus × hybridus (lenten rose) - Long-blooming flowers for early spring

Hosta - The shade garden star

Japanese Painted Fern - Attractive and low-maintenance


For more amazingly helpful gardening tips check out our friend Yvonne Cunnington's site
http://www.flower-gardening-made-easy.com/sign-up.html

Garden Jobs for April from the Old Famers Almanac

Start coleus cuttings now to plant outdoors in the garden by early June. These colorful plants are enjoying a revival as fine accents to annual and perennial borders.
Rake or remove mulches from all flower beds.
Plant rosebushes. They often do best if planted before growth starts and buds swell. And if you want to increase their fragrance, surround them with parsley.
Scatter annual poppy seeds in your flower garden and let them grow where they will. They don't like to be transplanted.
Broadcast lime, wood ashes, or a mixture of the two over alkaline-loving perennials such as delphiniums and dianthus. Bring color outdoors to patios, porches, and even the garden with pansy plants, which don't mind cold nights. To encourage constant flowering, routinely remove spent blossoms and keep them from getting bone-dry.
Sow sweet peas as soon as the soil can be worked. Nick the seeds with a nail file and plant them five inches deep, but cover them with only about three inches of soil. Hoe more soil up around them as they grow.
Plant lilies-of-the-valley, violets, and garden lilies. Divide summer- and fall-blooming perennials, including delphiniums, irises, chrysanthemums, daisies, and phlox.
Although we think of this as a rainy month, it can fool us. Keep transplanted flowers well watered during dry spells.
When danger of frost has passed, uncover strawberry beds and keep them well watered.
Plant blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, and fruit trees.
Start seeds indoors for heat-loving crops such as eggplant, tomatoes, and squash.
To determine whether your garden soil is ready for seeds, grab a good handful of it. If you can form it into a ball, the soil is too wet. If it crumbles through your fingers and reminds you of chocolate cake, it's ready for planting.
If the soil is ready, give it a good stirring and let it sit for several days. Then top-dress it with compost or well-rotted manure and plant beets, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, radishes, parsnips, lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, and turnips.
If you got your peas in last month, be sure to give them a good fence for support, made of chicken wire, twine, or stubby branches that are at least three feet tall. Otherwise, plant them this month as soon as you can.
Scatter spinach or lettuce seeds around emerging bulb foliage to make wise use of your garden space, and have a leafy green crop at the ready to cover the bare spots left by deadheaded spring flowers.
Prune forsythias as soon as the flowers fade. Cut the oldest stems to within a foot of the ground, but be sure to let the plant keep its arching form; don't turn it into a gumdrop or cannonball.
Feed your trees. As soon as the frost goes out of the ground, give them a well-balanced slow-release fertilizer. Scatter about six good handfuls per each 10x10-foot area. Store leftover fertilizer in a small plastic trash can or a covered plastic container, and label it.
Rake your lawn to remove all leaves, dead grass, and small twigs. Sow seed for a new lawn, or fill in bare patches by first covering the area with compost or other organic matter. Roll the lawn if the ground isn't soggy.
If you receive mail-order nursery plants before your soil is dry enough for planting, make a trench and heel them into the ground in a protected area.
Don't fertilize strawberries in the spring. This is when the leaves are developing, and you'll get lush growth and meager, soft berries. Wait until blossoms appear and use a light hand.
Don't set tomato plants out in the garden too soon. They hate cold soil and cold nights (under 55 degrees F).
Don't forget to vent your cold frame. April days may feel chilly, but the temperature under the glass can get over 100 degrees F on a sunny day. Salad greens are unhappy over 65 degrees F, and most other plants will perish over 85 degrees F.

http://www.almanac.com