“My primary objective in planning Earth Day was to show the political leadership of the Nation that there was broad and deep support for the environmental movement.” -Senator Gaylord Nelson (EPA Journal, 1980).
According to earthday.org, on January 28th, 1969, an oil well blew out just off the shore of Santa Barbara. What resulted was a several month long oil spill that severely affected Santa Barbara’s marine and avian wildlife, beaches, and the health of its residents. Union Oil was hit with a $1.3 billion lawsuit for its responsibility in the oil spill.
The American public was appalled. They watched as upwards of two million gallons of oil wrecked everything in its path, and suddenly understood that this could be their new normal. The attitude shifted, and people wanted to do something to improve their living conditions.
Shortly after, Senator Gaylord Nelson and activist Denis Hayes organized Earth Day, and after a successful marketing campaign, 20 million Americans demonstrated all across the country in support of environmental policies.
It is important to note that the initial goal here was not global warming—which did not become an accepted scientific theory until the 1980s. What the public was seeing was largely a health and environmental crisis. Prior to the first Earth Day, corporations and factories had free reign over how much oil they could drill, coal they could burn, and smog they could generate. The American public were frustrated, not with the idea of climates changing across the globe, but with their government allowing their water and air to be tainted and polluted.
Earth Day is now a reminder of that. That our work is never done, that if we don’t demonstrate how much we want clean air and water, we simply will not get clean air and water.
Join us at Tracy Earth Project’s Earth Day event: Growing Tracy Green! The event will be on April 26th, 2025 from 9am-1pm in Downtown Tracy on 9th and Central Avenue.