Podcast appearances and mentions of adam rome

Each year, we celebrate Earth Day; and each year, our collective actions lead to more greenhouse gas emissions, more habitat destruction, and more species extinctions. It's hard for Earth Day not to feel like more of a superficial patting of ourselves on the back or a greenwashing opportunity for corporate sponsors than a serious call for transformative change. The first Earth Day, on April 22, 1970, was something totally different. With 12,000 events across the country and more than 35,000 speakers from every walk of life—young and old, scientists and preachers, liberals and conservatives—the transformative power of the first Earth Day, conceived as a teach-in rather than a rally or a protest, is hard for us to imagine in our contemporary era of stark political polarization, hashtag protests, and climate denial politics.Adam Rome is an environmental historian who digs deep into the historical record and emerges with profound insights about the first Earth Day and the origins of the environmental movement. His work reveals the vital importance of understanding our environmental history in order to forge a more promising environmental future.Adam Rome was my advisor many years ago when I studied environmental history and cultural geography in graduate school at Penn State. And now, I'm very happy that he's my good friend and colleague here at the University at Buffalo, where he's Professor of Environment and Sustainability. My conversation with Adam travels through history, long before and after the first Earth Day, from beaver hats in feudal Europe; to the post-WWII era of prosperity and suburban development; and up to the present, as he probes the business world's attempts to become more sustainable. You can listen on Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other podcast platforms.Please rate, review, and share to help us spread the word!Adam RomeAdam Rome is professor of environment and sustainability at the University at Buffalo. A leading expert on the history of environmental activism, his first book, The Bulldozer in the Countryside: Suburban Sprawl and the Rise of American Environmentalism, won the Frederick Jackson Turner Award and the Lewis Mumford Prize. His book on the history of the first Earth Day, The Genius of Earth Day: How a 1970 Teach-In Unexpectedly Made the First Green Generation, was featured in The New Yorker. He is co-editor of Green Capitalism? Business and the Environment in the Twentieth Century. From 2002 to 2005, he edited the journal Environmental History. In addition to numerous scholarly publications, he has written essays and op-eds for a variety of publications, including Nature, Smithsonian, The Washington Post, Wired, and The Huffington Post. He has produced two Audible Original audio courses: “The Genius of Earth Day” and “The Enduring Genius of Frederick Law Olmsted.”Quotation read by Adam Rome“The question is whether any civilization can wage relentless war on life without destroying itself, and without losing the right to be called civilized.” — Rachel Carson, from Silent SpringRecommended Readings & MediaTranscription IntroJohn Fiege Each year we celebrate Earth Day. And each year our collective actions lead to more greenhouse gas emissions, more habitat destruction, and more species extinctions. It's hard for Earth Day not to feel like more of a superficial patting of ourselves on the back, or a greenwashing opportunity for corporate sponsors, then a serious call for transformative change.The first Earth Day on April 22, 1970 was something totally different. With 12,000 events across the country, and more than 35,000 speakers from every walk of life, young and old scientists and preachers, liberals and conservatives, the transformative power of the first Earth Day, conceived as a teaching rather than a rally or protest is hard for us to imagine in our contemporary era of stark political polarization, hashtag protests, and climate denial politics.Adam Rome is an environmental historian who digs deep into the historical record and emerges with profound insights about the first Earth Day in the origins of the environmental movement. His work reveals the vital importance of understanding our environmental history in order to forge a more promising environmental future.Adam Rome But mobilizing isn't organizing. And mobilizing isn't empowering. It doesn't take people new places, you know, and then you think about other you know, advertising isn't about teaching you anything. It's about getting you to buy, you know, something. Political messaging isn't about educating you. It's about getting you to vote for this guy or woman rather than that person. So, it's yes or no, you know, Earth Day, the original Earth Day was so much more complicated than that. It left it up to millions of individuals to say, what does this mean to me, what am I going to do? It didn't try to marshal them all in one direction, or to enlist them into a preexisting cause.John Fiege I'm John Fiege, and this is Chrysalis.Adam Rome was my advisor many years ago when I studied environmental history and cultural geography in graduate school at Penn State. And now I'm very happy that he's my good friend and colleague here at the University of Buffalo, where he's professor of Environment and Sustainability.My conversation with Adam travels through history long before and after the first Earth Day, from Beaver hats and feudal Europe to the post World War Two era of prosperity and suburban development, and up to the present, as he probes the business world's attempts to become more sustainable.Here is Adam Rome. ---Conversation John Fiege If you could just tell, tell me a bit about where you grew up, and about your relationship to the rest of nature when you were a kid.Adam Rome I grew up in West Hartford, Connecticut. The town itself is a couple 100 years old. But the particular house that I grew up in, was in a was built in the late 1950s. In what had been a golf course, for some reason, the golf course moved a mile away. And so, when I was growing up, the former golf course was being slowly developed. And in fact, I remember one day, I don't know how old I was maybe eight, seeing bulldozers come and knocking trees down on one of the nearby yards. That that was undeveloped still. And that I think was really crucial, even more than the wild are places that I used to hang out that a couple of friends and I would go in the wild parts, the still undeveloped parts of the old golf course. And back then parents weren't worried about their kids in the way they are now. So, my parents had a big cowbell on their front porch. And when it was, you know, 15 minutes to dinnertime, they would ring the cow bell, and I can hear it anywhere in the neighborhood and come home, and that's so idyllic. But it was a very typical 50s suburban neighborhood.John Fiege So, you, you went to college at Yale, and then you were a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and then you landed in Kansas. Can you tell me the story of how you got to Kansas and what you did when you were there?Adam Rome Kansas interestingly, I'll answer your question in a second but, but I had a much much more overwhelming emotional response to the landscape in Kansas than I ever did to any place around where I grew up, you know, that that John FiegeWhy do you think that was? Adam Rome I think I I loved the vastness of the sky. I love the spectacular sunsets. I love watching clouds move through the sky. I mean, you know, there's there's no tall buildings even in the cities in Kansas, compared to the northeast. So, you could see forever. And another thing that I really loved was, especially in the Western two thirds of the state. Wherever there was a river, you could tell those 15 or 20 miles away, because that would be the only place there would be trees. Right. And I love that the landscape was so powerful a presence, everybody thought about it all the time.John Fiege So, you eventually landed at University of Kansas, studying environmental history under Dan Webster, who's one of the great minds and founders of the discipline. Tell me what you got what got you interested in environmental history? Had you done anything with that prior to graduate school? And how did you come with? How did you come to work with Don Wooster?Adam Rome Environmental history really didn't exist as a field. That or at least it was in its most infant stage. When I was in college, which was 1976 to 1980. I actually got introduced to Don's work and to one other really renowned, now renowned, environmental historian through this humanities project that I did, about the little-known historical places. One of them was a place that during the dustbowl years of the 1930s, when the great plains were decimated by these unbelievable windstorms that that made up, you know, parts of Kansas look like Cape Cod, the dunes on Cape Cod that I had seen as a kid, devastating dust storms. And the government tried to reclaim some of those lands, it was really a pioneering effort of environmental restoration or ecological restoration. And so, there was this Cimarron grasslands in the very southwest corner of the state. It was one of the little-known historical places that I wrote about. And the background work that I did for that involved Don Westers first prize winning book, which is just called Dustbowl, and that book blew me away, I never imagined that you could write a history that combined environmental history and political history. And it's really an effort to understand the dust storms not as a purely natural phenomenon, but it's something that had been partly, maybe even predominantly caused by human activity in the decades leading up to it. And I read that book and it blew me away. And then right after that, I discovered this one other book that had just come out by William Cronin called changes in the land, which is about Native Americans and English colonists in New England, and all the ways in which they changed the landscape that the colonists did. And it gave a new way of understanding why the colonists were able to supplant the natives. But it also had some brilliant ideas about basic ways that we think about, about nature.John Fiege  08:09Let's turn to your first book, which is the bulldozer in the countryside. And it's a powerful environmental history of suburbia in America and how after World War Two developers brought Henry Ford's assembly line concept to the production of cheap tract housing on cheap land, on the outskirts of cities across the country. I want to read a passage from the book, but first, could you talk about how the suburbs were created and give us a sense of the scale at which this transformation of the countryside took place?Adam Rome Well, first, you have to keep in mind that before World War Two, not counting farm areas, where homeownership was much more common. In cities, there never been a point where more than 40% of Americans owned their own home. And homebuilding in those decades. was was really a mom-and-pop kind of thing. I mean, it was it was a craft. It wasn't it wasn't an industry. A lot of home builders might only build one or two houses a year. So, after World War Two, most famously in Levittown, New York, and then several other Levittowns, but mimicked all across the country. People figured out a way to to turn to mass produce housing, and in order to do that, they also needed cheap land, and large tracts of cheap land. So, although some of these postwar subdivisions that were mass produced were within the boundaries of cities, most of them weren't because the land that was cheap and widely available was was outside the city limits, right and so on. and all kinds of new earth moving equipment, especially the bulldozer had come into common usage during World War Two. And it became possible to turn almost any kind of landscape, you know, a marsh, a steep hillside a forest, into a flat pad, that's like a technical term for building and then breaking down the construction process into, you know, I don't remember the exact number, but let's say 20 different components. So, you know, one crew would would just bring the wood for the roofing, you know, where another would just do the bathroom or, and they could do in the case of Levittown, you know, 17,000 houses in in, you know, a year or two, right. And, and so the new combination of the new mass production method of building houses, and then unbelievable pent-up demand for housing, because there'd been virtually no housing construction during the Great Depression in the 1930s. And then virtually no housing construction during World War Two, right, and then the baby boom after the war. So, you've got millions and millions of people desperate for places to live, they didn't necessarily want to live in the suburbs, but they wanted a place to live and an affordable place, it was often cheaper to buy a Levittown house than to rent an apartment in a city. So, these, and by the late 40s, early 50s 2 million homes a year are getting built, which is an astonishing number. I don't think it had ever been more than 400,000 in a year in American history up to that point. So, a territory the size of Rhode Island, basically, every year is getting turned into new subdivisions, mostly in suburbs. And that that was I write in my book that was in whatever else it was, it was an environmental disaster on the scale of the dust.John Fiege Right, right. Just clearing all that land. Yeah, I grew up in Greenbelt, Maryland, one of Eleanor Roosevelt's plans, communities. Yeah, from the 30s. From the 30s. There's kind of pre pre post war, suburban development, but it was right on the outskirts of Washington DC. And, you know, had a little bit more of a idyllic you know, communitarian feel to it than, than the later suburbs. So, with your book, let me let me read a quote you you quote, the writer, Margo Tupper. Oh, yes. Like millions of Americans moved with her family to the suburbs after World War Two in Maryland. Oh, really? Was that Maryland? Yeah, realize that. Oh, that's interesting. Well, let me read the quote. So, she might have been your neighbor. Yeah. Wow. I had no idea. So let me it's a kind of a long quote, but I think it's worth reading because it's so it's so rich. “At that time, our house was second from the last on the dead end street. Beyond were acres of untouched woodlands, which were a refuge for children, a place to play natural surroundings. Youngsters in the neighborhood would go there build dams or catch minnows and a little creek, gather wildflowers and pick blossoms from the white dog woods. They built tree houses, picnicked under the tall tulip trees, and dog Jack in the pulpits, wild Fern and Violets to transplant to their gardens. Then one day my little girl Jan ran into the house shouting, Mother, there's a bulldozer up the street. The men say they're going to cut down the trees. They can't do that. They're my trees. Where will we play? Please, Mother, please stop them. Jan ran frantically out the door shouting. I'll get Susan Georgie Sissy and all the other children. If they're going to take our woods away. We'll have to save all we can. The children returned several hours later, pulling wagons loaded with flowers and plants. Jan brought home a small dogwood tree and planted among the wildflowers in the South Garden. Indeed, the bulldozers did come, these huge Earth eating machines raped the woods filled up the creek, buried the wildflowers and frightened away the rabbits and the birds. The power saws came too and took part in the murder of the woodlands near our home. Dynamite blasted out the huge tree roots trucks roared past our house carrying the remains sections of murdered trees and tons of earth in which were buried vines, shrubs and flowers. Then the dozers came to level the earth and power shovels to dig grade holes in less than a month, the first of 200 look like closely set small all houses rose to take the place of our beautiful forest.” So, at the heart of your book is this great irony that the experience the experiences of suburbanites like Margot Tupper and her family, who witnessed the destruction, on the frontlines of suburban development firsthand out there, front windows, helped ignite the environmental movement. In the 1950s and 60s, the majority of women had not yet entered the labor force. And it was women in particular, who spearheaded the new environmental movement. Can you talk about what Margo is writing there? And how this played out?Adam Rome Yeah, so that book came out in 1965, as I recall, and at that point, there had already been, maybe I'd say, for six, seven years, mounting concern, for lots of reasons, but, but one of them was the destruction of places for kids to play. And, and yeah, there's a powerful irony that the house that she lived in, and in her daughter, and all the neighbors that her daughter played with, you know, that had been something wild too, before it was made into their house. And, you know, it might have been that, that an earlier generation would have cried about that, you know, earlier generation means, like a year or two before. And she herself was sensitive to that she doesn't, she doesn't want there to be no development at all. But she's part of a movement to try to imagine land saving ways of development, ways of having same number of people have places to live even single-family homes, but clustered together with much larger, open space that wasn't just yard but was truly Wilder. And that was, that's keeps getting rediscovered, by the way, you know, every, like, 10 years people, people realize, that's an interesting idea. It's never become the norm. But but, you know, my whole book is really about people coming to realize that what, and this is part of a broader story and world after World War Two, that, you know, we have all these amazing technological changes, and new products, new ways of doing things that, that seemed miraculous, they allow us to, to have comfort and convenience and, and wealth on a scale that we hadn't imagined before. But they turned out to also have incredibly bad, unexpected environmental costs. And so, my book is really the story of how people try to come to terms with that, how do they try to reduce the cost of suburban development? Without ending it, you know, that they weren't saying no development at all? No one was, but But trying to figure out ways of meeting the need. And, and even that's an interesting question, you know, what, what do we need and housing? What is a good house? But how do you do that at at much less environmental costs. And it turned out that, you know, I was really stunned. I didn't think anyone would have been thinking about that until the 1970s. After the first Earth Day, and after the, you know, the whole environmental movement is obviously roaring along. But in fact, I found that even in the midst of World War Two people were beginning to find fault with some aspects of this new way of building and with each decade, more and more of these horrid side effects come to light and some of them become only of concern to experts. But open space, in particular led to real grassroots activism, real grassroots protests, and a new language. You know, she writes about rape. And no one had talked like that before, not even John Muir, when he was talking about the destruction of wild spaces. He came close but but this was so much more intimate than, you know, some spectacular place in Yosemite Valley getting destroyed for a damn this, this was your backyard. This was the place your kid played. And people start putting the word progress in quotation marks, you know, that, that it's not obvious to them anymore that that that these new homes are, are just purely good. So that's something radically new.John Fiege Yeah, and you bring up property rights in the book and kind of relates So what you're saying about Margo tuber being part of this movement to have more land and common open space. And the new ecological thinking that emerged in this era began to challenge and redefine property rights. Can you? Can you talk a little bit about that, and how that became a central issue and the struggle to protect ecological health?Adam Rome Yeah, this was another huge surprise to me. That, you know, with pollution, it's obvious that the, the biggest polluters are businesses. And, and so challenging corporate polluters is part of a long tradition of trying to rein in corporate power. But there aren't, you know, billions of corporations or millions of corporations, there's, there's only hundreds of really big ones, with with property, millions and millions of people own property. And it had been part of American history, that owning property was easy here, which it wasn't in Europe, and ordinary people could own property. And they could do with it, whatever they wanted. That, you know, that was one of the great freedoms of America in the minds of many people that came here from Europe. And by the 1960s, people are coming to realize, not just with homebuilding with development of all kinds that the way you use your land, couldn't really be entirely private decision, because it had consequences beyond the boundaries of your property. And, and people talked about this in the 60s as a quiet revolution, the growing awareness, both in the courts and in state legislatures, and in national forums, that, that how you use your land, how you developed it, especially could have far reaching detrimental consequences to the public good. And that, therefore, the public ought to have some say in what you did, didn't necessarily mean that it would, that it would bar you from doing certain things, although people said that to you know, in the same way that you're not allowed to sell tainted meat, you know, you shouldn't be able to build in a wetland, if that's going to cause flooding somewhere else. Or you shouldn't be able to build on a hillside, if that's going to endanger people who own property lower down the hill, or, you know, any number of things of that kind, where how you use the land could have far reaching implications beyond your borders. And, you know, that idea then, eventually led to a powerful counterattack. People talked about it, as you know, the new regulations that come in the 1960s and early 70s, as a new feudalism, the opponents called it so Feudalism was, you know, pre capitalist way of thinking about rights and responsibilities that came with land ownership, and only a few people could use it. And they, you know, they had to use it in a way that serve the community, whether they wanted to or not. So that's part of the powerful cause the rise of modern conservatism part of the rise of Ronald Reagan, was this idea that, that among those who own property that that didn't accept that idea that it was really a matter of public interest. They wanted to go back to the days when they could do whatever they wanted with their land.John Fiege  23:36Right, right. Oh, that's so interesting. And I love the title of your book, The Bulldozer in the Countryside. It paints such a vivid visceral image. And and you mentioned somewhere that that echoes The Machine in the Garden, the book by Leo marks, can you talk about that book and how it relates to your work?Adam Rome Yeah, Leo Marx. I'm not sure if he's still alive. I did meet him. He was a professor for a long time at MIT. And I did meet him when I spoke there more than a decade ago. But he wrot e this brilliant book, it's one of the most famous books that any American scholar has ever written in the humanities, called the machine in the garden. And it's a study of the literary responses in America, although it starts with Shakespeare in The Tempest. So, imagining America to the spread of technology of development of modern civilization into seemingly pristine areas. And, and, and, and for much of early American history, people just thought that was great, you know, that was fulfilling a biblical injunction to subdue the earth to write to make to make the wild spaces into a productive garden. But by the time of Thoreau, and others in the, you know, 1830s 1840s 1850s people are starting to have at least a very elite, well-educated group of artists and writers, more mixed feelings about that they, they, they know it's part of America's destiny seemingly to transform the wilderness, but they also lament some of the consequences of that. And, and The Machine in the Garden in in Leo Marxs is the railroad, that that was the great symbol. Once the railroad came, everything was going to change. And and the railroad goes right through Concord, Thoreau could hear it. Nathaniel Hawthorne can hear it. So, I took that image. And actually, the publisher didn't like the title. I had to really...John Fiege Oh really?  Adam Rome yeah, John Fiege wow. Adam RomeIf it was, if it was a trade press, I would have lost they would have been able to title what they want, but because it was a university press, I won.John Fiege Great. Well, moving on from the suburbs. Let's talk about Rachel Carson, who's one of my heroes.Adam RomeMine too. John FiegeYou wrote an article about her legacy that began this way. “In the decades after World War Two, many Americans imagined that modern technology finally would free humanity from the constraints and burdens of nature. We would overcome disease, moderate the extremes of climate, travel great distances in a flash and enjoy abundance of all kinds. Detergents will get clothes cleaner than clean. Nuclear Fission would generate electricity too cheap to meter. Plastics, seemingly inexhaustible, and infinitely malleable, would end our dependence on scarce natural resources. Bulldozers would transform marshes and steep hillsides into buildable land. Soon we would live on a perfected Earth where everything was easy, comfortable, and safe.” And then enter Rachel Carson, and her nineteen's landmark 1962 book, Silent Spring. What did she bring to that mentality that was really dominant in the 50s, and 60s?Adam Rome It's, you know, because we live in a post Rachel Carson world, it's so hard in some ways to imagine just how gung ho people were, especially Americans, but it wasn't it wasn't unique to us. After World War Two, the idea that, that we that we could conquer nature, that we could overcome any natural limit. And, you know, because nowadays, we we all think we love nature. But we're never as honest as we should be about the fact that there are a lot of elements of nature that we don't love, maybe even hate. And, and a lot of those are limits. most obvious one is death, you know. But that was another thing that people thought they could conquer, you know, that they thought modern medicine might allow a kind of immortality almost. Right. So, there's this tremendous faith that in the 50s and 60s that we're bringing nature under control, and that we are, you know, incredibly rapidly overcoming all these natural limits. And, and Rachel Carson is probably the, I mean, lots of people began to have doubts about that. But I would say she is by far the most powerful voice. And it's so amazing. It's just this lone voice, this one woman, she had no institutional by the time she wrote Silent Spring, she's just a writer. John Fiege RightAdam Rome She has no institutional support. And she's taking on one of the most powerful industries in the country. And she's taking on even more powerfully, this whole way of thinking about what our relationship to nature should be, and saying, no, it can't possibly be conquest. You know, nature is bigger than us. We can't conquer nature. And when we try, we may get a lot out of it in the short run, but in the long run, where we're risking undermining the foundations of our life. And and her warning is about that they were specifically about the new chemical pesticides that came into wide use after World War Two like DDT, but but she was really attacking much more broadly a whole kind of technological hubris of thinking that we could change nature in any way and that it would just be for the good, you know, it would be better we could make a better nature than nature had made. And she said that preposterous. And ultimately, it threatens our survival. But even if it didn't threaten our survival, it also was you know, she had different adjectives for it an immature way of thinking, a brute way of thinking, an immoral way of thinking, you know, that, that she too was saying we could do better. That's not our best self, our best self would be finding a way to to thrive while everything else also thrives.John Fiege Right. But you do point out that despite the huge impact of Silent Spring, and the government regulation and pesticides that followed, you write, we use more pesticides now than in 1962. Adam RomeYeah. John Fiege And which makes me think, like, has the change been in our mentality and our actions? Or has it been in our messaging and our vision of ourselves? Like, have we covered things up, but not really dealt with the underlying problems that continue in different forms?Adam Rome So, so one of the reasons why pesticide use is up, it's not just up in the US. But lot of other parts of the world have developed industrialized agriculture that relies heavily on pesticides. And, and, and that's true about a lot of things, you know, our air is cleaner, our water is cleaner. But that's partly because we don't make stuff here as much as we used to, it's made in China or Vietnam or wherever. Yeah, their air is not cleaner. There, you know, we've exported, we've exported our pollution. Yeah, we've outsourced our pollution, as well as a lot of our manufacturing jobs. And, you know, I go back and forth about this, I have a split personality. On the one hand, I'm Dr. Earth Day. You know, so I, I've spent a lot of time thinking about environmental activism in the US in the last 150 years, and how much more powerful environmental activists have become than they were. And that's an inspiring story, you know, but then the other side of me is Mr. Apocalypse, you know, all the ways in which things just keep getting worse, or at least they're still incredibly threatening. John Fiege RightAdam Rome And, and I'm trying to understand why, you know, without understanding why we can't possibly hope to, to avoid those outcomes.John Fiege So that's a great place to jump to your next book, which is The Genius of Earth Day, with a subtitle “How a 1970 Teach-In Unexpectedly Made the First Green Generation.” Can you paint a picture for us of the state of the environment on the eve of the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970?Adam Rome Yeah, it's so hard to imagine now, just how much more polluted visibly polluted the country was in 1970. You know, every city was just full of smoke of all kinds. And, you know, smoke from, from burning trash from incinerators, folks, from utilities, from manufacturers, on and on cement places. The waters were just horrid. You know, you couldn't swim in most urban rivers and many, even rural ones. You couldn't eat the fish safely. You couldn't do a lot of other recreational things, you know that the waters would smell they'd be, they might be acidic, they might even burn you if you fell in. You certainly couldn't drink them. And there was no regulation of waste disposal of any kind, not just ordinary trash, but hazardous what we now call hazardous waste. That phrase hadn't been invented yet. There was no regulation of it. So people could just dump incredibly toxic stuff wherever they wanted. And even, you know, things you you can barely imagine when I was in Kansas, canoeing down the biggest river in the middle of the state, which in Kansas is called our Kansas, of course. You know, you'd see rusted hawks of cars on the riverbanks, you know, that people would take out the few valuable parts of the car that they could sell and, and then they just dump them on the riverbank, and they were sitting there decades later. So, you know, everywhere people were aware that this wasn't like news. You could see it every day. But what was missing was the will to do something about it, it had always been considered the price of progress. You know, as part of a booming economy, we had to put up with pollution, especially in cities. And finally in 1970, after, you know, growing discontent that leads to the modern environmental movement, and to the first Earth DayJohn Fiege On January 18, 1970, Senator Nelson's environmental Teaching Committee took out a full page ad in the New York Times, announcing the upcoming event for the first time, it read in large font, April 22, Earth Day, and then it went on "A disease has infected our country, it has brought smog to Yosemite, dumped garbage in the Hudson, sprayed DDT in our food and left our cities in decay. The carrier is man”. Can you tell me the story of how earth day got its name? But how the idea of the teach-in that Senator Nelson had remained foundational to to the concept of what Earth Day was.Adam Rome So, Nelson. And he never wrote down anything about the aha moment when he had the seed of the idea that became Earth Day, but apparently, he was flying back to Washington and having gone out to California to see about six months after the devastation in the wake of the first unfortunately, only the first great oil spill in Santa Barbara. And he read about is a tactic that was used by people who were opposed to the Vietnam War called the a teaching, which was essentially a kind of politicized extracurricular, curricular activity on a couple dozen college campuses in the mid 60s, where opponents of the war and proponents of the war would come together and argue, was organized by the opponents, they were convinced that that would inspire people to to action that it would mobilize them against the war. And Nelson was he he was one of the first senators to oppose the war. That was one of his most courageous moves. But he was inspired by that he thought, you know, maybe the President has failed on this Congress has failed in this, maybe young people could could really carry the ball and make the environment a national priority. So, he, he promised in Seattle in September 1969, that he would organize a nationwide environmental teaching. And, and at first, he was only envisioning it as some small number of campuses, only on college campuses. But and he didn't know anything about how to do this, you know, he's at that point was a 53-year-old establishment figure. He wasn't some young Radster. And he rejected the advice that he got from a good friend that he did, he tried to make it a hierarchical top-down kind of thing. Instead, he decided basically, anyone who wanted to have a teaching could have it and they could do anything they wanted. And he just trusted that that would work out that that that would involve a lot of people, and they would do great things. And he was right. And quickly, this overwhelmed his staff, there was a lot more interest in it than he expected. And K to 12 schools got into it. And then people in communities wanted to have events that weren't tied to educational institutions. So, he hires this, this small number of 20-somethings who had been activists mostly and other causes in the 60s, to help him organize it. And, and, and they found this hipster ad guy in New York, Julian Koenig, who was willing, pro bono to come up with better names they thought environmental teaching sounded too academic. Even Nelson's adviser thought that but that he wasn't able to come up with a better name. And and Julian Koenig comes up with the name Earth Day and then this really blows me away this is part of Gaylord Nelson genius was he really he really didn't try to micromanage soJohn Fiege Right Adam Rome These 20 Somethings decide earth day is a much better name and they take out this ad and as far as I could tell they never asked him whether that was okay. They just did and then they changed the name of the of the you know, they weren't technically for this not for profit that Nelson set up called Environmental Teaching Inc. They couldn't legally change the name but they they changed the name on the stationery and everything else to environmental action. You know, again, they were trying to suggest that, that they were about action and protest and transforming America. But but the teach-in ideas still was very, very powerful. And most Earth Day events were places that people talked about these issues, it was an unprecedented discussion that involved, you know, potentially 20 million people. And 10s of 1000s of speakers, who had most had never spoken publicly about environmental issues. And these discussions were very intimate. Some of them were soul searching in the words of the New York Times, and the media to got into it. So, you have all this media discussion, unprecedented media coverage, and then you have these much more intimate settings where people are talking about these issues. And together, that was transformative. I think a lot of people thinking about these issues for the first time realized they cared about them a lot. And they were willing to do a lot to try to solve the problems and to keep doing it, often for decades.John Fiege And, you know, I'm really struck by, you know, you already mentioned this, but his willingness to let go, and the profound significance that had, and I just wanted to kind of revisit that, because particularly from today's today's perspective, it's almost impossible to imagine a US senator, starting something like this, and then just being like, Ah, I'll let it go have a life of its own. And I'll put the kids in charge. And hopefully, it's, it's a thing, but you know, I'm not gonna micromanage it like, that doesn't happen.Adam Rome No, no, I agree. And he didn't just let it go. I mean, he worked like hell, John Fiege right Adam Rome to publicize it, and to raise money for the staff and to, John Fiege right, Adam Rome you know,John Fiege But his, his ego didn't seem to get in the way.Adam Rome He didn't think of it as his thing. And I think, the way I've put it as he led by encouraging other people to lead, and that was brilliant. And, and you're right, especially in politics, that's so rare. You know, most people in politics want to be the center of attention. And, and he didn't. And in fact, you know, the New York Times, the day after day, the man of the man of the day was the 20, something guy that he had hired Denis Hayes, not Gaylord Nelson. But but it was actually Gaylord Nelson, that set the whole thing in motion. And so, I think that that modesty is so amazing. And that, that, that, you know, and I again, I don't know whether this was just a brilliant intuition on his part, or whether it was a little more carefully thought out, but, but I think he understood that it would be more powerful if a lot of other people could take ownership of it, if they could make it their own. And they did. And that was one of the biggest discoveries in the book for me is how many people all across the country had the idea to do this and spent months and months working on it. And, and those months and months were incredibly transformative for many of them. And they were not just an education on the issues, but people realized they had all kinds of skills they didn't think they had, or they had a passion they didn't realize they had. And and so many of those Earth Day organizers come away after Earth Day thinking, I want to keep doing something like this. And there were there were no, you know, books with hundreds and hundreds of eco jobs that you could just pick, you know, there were only a handful of things that were well established careers, and anything remotely to do with the environment. And a lot of these Earth Day organizers and many other people that just participated in Earth Day, they go out, they pioneer new career paths, they create new kinds of jobs and new kinds of organizations and new new ways of being, you know, an architect or a journalist or a professor, for that matter, to to continue to work on this and that that was only because they had already invested so much of themselves in the Earth Day.John Fiege Yeah, and the scale of the first Earth Day is amazing. It generated 12,000 events across the country and more than 35,000 speakers. And, and you write, that this first Earth they brought opposites together in powerful ways. Can you talk about how this big tent of unusual combinations of people gave us Earth Day?Adam RomeWell, it was a big tent and that too, is a almost inconceivable now in or was celebrated everywhere, right red states, blue states purple states. A lot of the places that I ended up writing about in the book are, you know, diehard Trump country now Alabama, you know, Montana, they had incredible Earth Day of events. And so part of it was that it was much more bipartisan than you can imagine. But I think one of the places where it brought people together was it combined the power of the establishment, you know, Gaylord Nelson could open doors, he could do lots of things, with the energy and the creativity of the grassroots. That was incredible. And that was so different than some of the other huge events of the 60s that were either more establishment or more grassroots than Earth Day, which was both. It also brought together young and old. And that was, again, something I didn't think about initially, but was hugely important, because that was a time, you couldn't take that for granted. I mean, a lot of old folks looked at college kids in thought troublemaker. And a lot of kids under 30 looked at old folks and said, can't trust them. You know, right. But Earth Day brought together intergenerational collaboration, all kinds of folks and again, at the national level, but also at the grassroots. And, and again, as I mentioned, a few minutes ago, I think this, it created this unprecedented debate about what people started calling the environmental crisis. And the debate didn't take place purely in the media or purely face to face, it was both. And I think that made it more powerful than it would have been in either of those places alone. And I think there's a lesson in that for our social media age, powerful as social media is it can't do some of the mobilizing, and the educating and the life changing things that the face-to-face conversation and the face-to-face planning of Earth Day. accomplished.John Fiege Right. So, I've always, to me, it's always been strange that the environment is such a political politicized issue, as if pollution and ecological destruction don't affect everybody. And I just when I read you talking about the kind of, you know, specifically democratic liberal intellectuals theorizing about this as like, is that part of the DNA of how we understand the environment, and therefore, it's so politicized in this country as a result?Adam Rome It wasn't, though in 1970. And in the same way, and and even conservatives, except for the most hardcore, you know, the John Birch are far far, far far right, folks, or the, you know, the totally southern segregationist forever, conservatives. Even most conservatives understood that pollution was a real problem, you know, there weren't deniers, then. They they disagreed sometimes with liberals. And as I said, there were liberal Republicans as well as liberal Democrats, right, about what to do about it. But there were a lot of conservatives that spent a lot of time in 1970, trying to figure out what would be a conservative approach? Is there a way to address these issues without big government? And, and so for example, there were people talking about global warming wasn't an issue, yet someone was talking about carbon tax, but there were people talking about pollution taxes, you know, that part of the problem was the market didn't force businesses to pay for the pollution that, but if they did have to pay for it, then they would reconstitute their way of doing things. So, they produced less pollution that was the market. Right. You know, there were conservatives talking about that, in 1970. And I think a couple you know, you there's a whole book about how the Republicans went from supportive to totally opposed, or almost totally opposed. But But I think the biggest thing that happened was, and this is another irony, you know, that modern environmentalism comes out of the prosperity of the post war years, right, and the prosperity is causing a lot of the problems, but it's also creating the political will to do something about them. And and then in 1973, more or less, the post war economic boom comes to an end and and the whole rest of the decade is full of economic turmoil, in fact, unprecedented, you know, high unemployment and high inflation which was supposed to be impossible, that the same, right and, and no one seems to be able to do anything about it. So, in that in that context, it suddenly becomes possible to have people argue again, what, wait a minute, we can't afford to keep going in this direction. Or, you know, these regulations are an onerous burden. By 1980, you know, you have Ronald Reagan saying he's going to undo all the environmental initiatives of the 70s. He doesn't, he can't. But he tries. And he has a lot of support for that that was inconceivable even five years before 10 years before.John Fiege Totally. You write: "Earth Day was an educational experience, as well as a political demonstration, that rare combination enabled Earth Day to have both long term and short-term impact". In the book, you tell this wonderful story of the San Mateo high school in California and its biology teacher, Edmund Home, who mentored students in the ecology club as they plan their Earth Day teaching. What happened there in those interactions between the teacher and his students? And what does it reveal about what the nature of the first Earth Day was?Adam Rome Yeah, so that's one of my favorite stories. I'm glad it struck you too. And that's the sort of thing Gaylord Nelson himself didn't envision, you know, he didn't originally envision high schools doing anything. But, but at this high school in Santa Monica, the teacher was a nature lover. But all the kids in the ecology club, most of them weren't, they were just interested in math and science. And they thought this was a cool thing. The way to be less nerdy was also something that appealed to some of the civic minded people in the school. So they're, you know, student body president, cheerleaders. You know, they met the teacher and the students over lunch, initially, just once a week for months, to talk about, you know, what, what would in environmental teach-in at their school be. And they had the total support of the principal. And, and those discussions in themselves, some of the participants told me were empowering, you know, that they weren't the kids weren't used to having an adult, listen seriously to their ideas about what they might do about anything. Right. And, and then, you know, they had to start doing the planning and figure out who might speak and what the activities were going to be. And you know, whether any of it was going to be funny, even though these were deadly, serious subjects, they decided they wanted humor. And, you know, they had to decide whether to address politically difficult issues, like population growth, which meant talking about sex, which you weren't supposed to do without permission. And, you know, they do all this interesting stuff. And as it gets closer to April 22, then they start, you know, the key organizer start meeting with, with the teacher at home every day. And again, you know, they he didn't tell him what to do. He had some suggestions, but it was their deal. But he, he nurtured them, he gave them the sense that they could do it. And so many people told me that not just the high school kids that I talked about a lot of the college and graduate school organizers to that, that it was empowering to work on this, that they they came away with it with this can-do sense that anything was possible.John Fiege It's so unusual. Adam RomeYeah. John Fiege To have an experience like that, that profound at that age. Adam RomeYeah. John Fiege So, you know, the institutional achievements in the wake of the first Earth Day are really remarkable. The formation of EPA and the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1970, the Clean Water Act in 1972, the Endangered Species Act of 1973, all under a Republican administration, no less. But in 1990, just after climate change, became a widely publicized environmental concern. There was a 20th anniversary celebration of Earth Day. It was also a huge event with more professional planning, better funding, and a more focused message than in 1970. But it didn't lead to an environmental decade that confronted climate change or any other environmental issues. And as the first birthday had, as you write, can you talk a bit about Earth Day 1990. And what it reveals about how remarkable and achievement the first Earth Day was, and what lessons we might draw from those differences.Adam Rome It's interesting. I often hesitate to talk about the personalities involved, but So Dennis Hayes, and he was the guy Dennis Hayes, who, who was the main force behind Earth Day 1990, the 20th anniversary. So, Dennis Hayes was was not Gaylord Nelson. And Denis Hayes, I think drew exactly the wrong lesson. And he's gone on to do incredibly interesting important things as an environmentalist. But the lesson that he drew was top down. And and so an Earth Day 1990 It had, you know, I don't remember the exact numbers, but let's say 20 or 30 times the budget of the first Earth Day, it had all these political consultants and Hollywood gurus and advertising mavens working pro bono, on their on their messaging and polling and tie in merchandise and getting celebrities involved. And, you know, so they made the mistake, I think of of hoping that they could just mobilize people. But mobilizing isn't organizing. And mobilizing isn't empowering. It doesn't take people new places, you know, and then you think about other you know, advertising isn't about teaching you anything, it's about getting you to buy, you know, something. Political messaging isn't about educating you; it's about getting you to vote for this guy or woman rather than that person. So, it's yes or no, you know, Earth Day, the original Earth Day was so much more complicated than that it left it up to millions of individuals to say, what does this mean to me, what am I going to do? It didn't try to marshal them all in one direction, or to enlist them into a preexisting cause. Earth Day 1990 Did Did those other things, it tried to get people to join groups that already existed, and they did. Environmental groups reached their new heights of membership in the wake of Earth Day 1990. And it certainly heightened the message that individuals what they consumed mattered. But I don't think, you know, when you go to a March, that's very powerful. But it's not necessarily life transforming, it's not right to change the way you think. And the same thing when you go into the voting booth. So, taking politics and marketing as your models, that was a mistake. And they got a lot of people involved way more even than the first Earth Day and they made it global. But they didn't understand that the deepest change comes from the empowerment, that's a much slower process and requires more give and take, you know, it's not just getting the message out, and then having people hear it and do something.John Fiege I want to turn to your most recent work, which revolves around business and the environment. With much of your recent writing, you're asking whether it's possible to green capitalism, and if so, what does that look like? you frame the question this way:  "At one extreme critics of capitalism dismiss all corporate talk of sustainability as greenwashing as a way to distract people from the fundamental destructiveness of the system. At the other extreme, the boosters of green business take for granted that sustainability is the inevitable next stage of the evolution of the market. Neither view is historically grounded". Why not?Adam Rome It's really definitional. So, if you can define capitalism, a variety ways, but some of the ways of defining capitalism make it just theoretically impossible that it could ever be green. So there, they don't they're not drawing on any historical data. It's a theoretical argument. The other argument, the booster argument, I'd say the historical record already clearly disproves. Capitalism is not just going to evolve, right, to a more sustainable thing. There are all kinds of reasons why, why the people that even that have tried the hardest to green, their businesses or their industries haven't been able to do it. So, if there's any chance of capitalism becoming green, the historical record, I would say so far, says it can only happen if there's powerful movement, a social movement, a political movement, that rewrites the rules that the change is what guides business. So that, that the default for business becomes doing the green thing rather than the exception.John Fiege Right. Let's talk about a specific example. You write about DuPont. And, you know, at some point in the late 80s, early 90s, DuPont kind of decided to start to lead the way in terms of environmental sustainability. And you really asked the question of how far can the company realistically go and how much can they truly fulfill this idea of, of sustainability, can you tell a little bit about the story of what happened with DuPont and what you drew from that?Adam Rome Sure. And so, it's 1989 that they have a new CEO, Edgar Willard. And he says, we need a new corporate environmentalism that's pretty much a phrase that he coined. And to think that they, they have to go in the phrase of the day beyond compliance. They can't just do what the law requires. That they they'll for all kinds of business reasons, they have to actually do better. They have to start thinking about how to green operations. And that's not just true for manufacturing firms, although it was manufacturers and particularly heavily polluting manufacturers that got the message first. So, I had already been thinking about what's the environmental impact of a company like DuPont, and how has it changed over time, and then I noticed that their CEO, Edgar Willard, becomes this national focal point, for an effort to try to create a corporate environmentalism and the next long serving CEO and board chairman of DuPont, Chad Holliday also becomes a national international leader in this movement. And for him, the key phrase was sustainable growth that he tries to envision to reorient the whole company toward some new areas that he foresaw as great needs if we were to become a more sustainable society. And both of them do real things that are, were hard. And in some cases, I would even say courageous. And they make dramatic improvements in certain ways. But in other ways, they totally fall short and the most egregious of their efforts that are non-efforts. Something that predated either of them that one of their iconic products at DuPont was Teflon —still is— and making Teflon involved a chemical usually just called C8, that they didn't make themselves three M made it and they bought it from 3M. But well before Willard comes into office. 3M begins to think C8 is not safe, or it could be hazardous in certain circumstances. They weren't DuPont. And DuPont has some serious internal debate about this. And they decide not to do anything differently than then. And and, and neither Edgar Willard nor Chad Holliday ever reconsiders that decision. In fact, they do the opposite when, when evidence of how dangerous it is to use C8 and and how C8 has escaped from their factory in West Virginia and is polluting the water and is polluting nearby land where they were dumping waste. They doubled down 3M eventually decides it's not going to make C8 anymore. And DuPont instead of finding an alternative builds their own C8 factory in North Carolina. And all of this is secret. This only comes out as a result of a miraculous series of circumstances, all of which could have easily not happened that allow an attorney Rob Billot to slowly build the evidence of how much DuPont knew, how great lengths they went to keep it secret, how they didn't make decisions that they easily could have made that wouldn't have even been that expensive, that could have avoided an environmental catastrophe. And the more interesting discovery in some way for me with DuPont was they they tried to create sustainable alternative to artificial fibers like polyester and nylon. And they tried to create a sustainable biofuel as an alternative to gasoline and for that matter, ethanol. And they put a huge amount of effort into it. And and they didn't get the results out of it, the financial results out of it that they hoped. And I think that's a key part of the puncturing of the balloon of the boosters, is that, you know, they make it sound like if people just had the will, they could create all these green new products and people would buy them and they'd make money. Green is Gold is the title of one book. It's not that simple. First of all, it's not always clear what is more sustainable product is and most companies don't have any expertise in thinking about this. So, they make mistakes but the market, the fundamental flaws of capitalism mean that greener products are always competing against things that are cheaper but dirtierJohn Fiege right, and then the public absorbs the costs, right? Environmental cost.Adam Rome Exactly. And, and some of those products can still find a niche, you know, like the Prius, or, you know, early on certain kinds of organic food. But a niche doesn't change the world, John Fiege RightAdam Rome and it and it also doesn't make enough money for big multinationals like DuPont that are publicly listed corporations to satisfy the shareholders... Right, and the shareholders rebelled. So, DuPont doesn't exist anymore. And part of what the part of what the shareholders the activist shareholders were rebelling against was the R&D Enterprise, which, which is crucial to sustainability. If you have to only think three months ahead, you're not going to be developing a lot of sustainable products, the things that DuPont was trying to do took a decade or more. And that's hard, even even if it's just a standard product, but especially if it's something that's trying to anticipate what would really be greener, 10 years from now. But, you know, the market doesn't reward that it rewards quick and dirty returns, not long-term farsighted thinking.John Fiege And you make this, this point that I think is really powerful that, you know, there, there are two different types of making business more sustainable, there are things like reducing waste, and being more efficient. And and using fewer materials, those things are all beneficial environmentally, they also make the cost of doing business less right there, they save money for the company. And companies have very enthusiastically taken that side of kind of eco thinking on and and often advertised how great they are for doing that. But there are other things that actually make the cost of doing business much higher, and things more difficult and more risky and less likely to to produce shareholder value. And those are the those are the things that companies haven't done well at all Adam Rome Right.John Fiege I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that. And what you've seen with DuPont and otherAdam Rome Right, so those those win-wins, where it's environmentally better, and it's more profitable, are usually in the category of what's come to be called Eco efficiencies. And even those aren't always easy. That was another lesson for me and DuPont was Woolard pushes his scientists as researchers to find ways to reduce waste. And in their initial response is pushback. No, we can't do that. Are you crazy? If you know if we could do that we would have done it already. It's going to cost more or it's technically impossible. But a lot of times thinking outside the box, in fact, allowed these win-win solutions, these eco efficiencies. And sometimes the savings were gargantuan, really. John Fiege Right. Adam Rome And, and it's not all just in production processes. You know, Xerox, realized that it could take back copiers and use the parts in the copiers to quote remanufactured copiers. And that would save them a lot of money. And it was and then they realized it would save them even more if the copiers were designed from the beginning to be disassembled and reused like that. And that was, you know, hundreds and hundreds of million dollars a year of savings. But only, you know, someone had to prod them to do that. So, it takes leadership. But then there are all these harder things were in the current business model. They're not likely to to be as rewarding as the alternatives. And at the worst extreme, you know, there are incentives in the market right now, to make climate change worse, you know, there are lots of ways not just a fossil fuel, people can profit from some of the things that are going on, rather than trying to solve the problem. So, if your actual goal is a green economy, whether it's a capitalist one or any other kind of one, then the rules have to change fundamentally the way we understand what business is and what it does, and what its responsibilities are having to change fundamentally. Because we're never going to get to a sustainable economy. If some things pay, and some don't that are greenJohn Fiege RightAdam Rome Everything has to be paid to be green, or we have to get to a system where that's not the standard judgment anymore.John Fiege Yeah, yeah. You've also done some really fascinating work around fashion as a driver of consumption, environmental destruction. Could you talk a bit about the story of the Beaver, and kind of the the ascendant merchant class in Europe and the wide-ranging impacts of the fashion aspirations on on rivers, meadows, wetlands in North America, that kind of thing.Adam Rome The reason fashion looms so large for me was you know, there's only so much that you can eat or drink. No matter how wealthy you are, you know, there's, there's a biological limit. And, and that's true for a lot of other things that we consume, but, but fashion creates this potentially unlimited demand, that, that if something goes out of style, and you're no longer willing to use it, even if it's perfectly functional in every other way, and then you buy something new, that's, that's an unbelievable demand on resources, to have, essentially insatiable appetites. And it started with clothing, and especially with the beaver hat, that became a fashion item in Europe, and then and then in the US. But in the 20th century, it's expanded to lots of other things, you know, your, your smartphone is a fashion item, Apple is a fashion company, in many ways, you know, cars became fashion items, and were sold on style, as much as anything else. And so many other things have become like that, that that's become a major form of marketing is to get you to be dissatisfied with what you have, because it no longer is cool, right, and then to junk it and get something else and, and, and that cycle is incredibly destructive, but it starts with beaver. The poor Beaver, you know, their pelt happened to be really good for making hats better than wool, which was the alternative, you know, it was easier to shape, and it was water resistant, and it was easier to dye in it. And it was more expensive. So, it also therefore was more of a status object. And, you know, at the beginnings of modern capitalism, the rising merchant class wanted to have a way of showing that they were important and, and having stylish attire, and especially stylish hats was part of it. And as a result, all the Beaver in Europe is wiped out except for the very far reaches of Siberia, then the New World, new to Europe, at least, is opened up to exploitation. And there's lots of beaver in the northern US and in Canada. And over the course of the centuries, the Beaver is nearly wiped out in North America. All to satisfy this never-ending demand for stylish new hats.John Fiege It always struck me as kind of the perfect example of what environmental history is. Because not only did this fashion sense in Europe, originally, wipe out the Beaver for the most part in North America. But because beavers were no longer making dams, then it changed the dynamics of the rivers. Adam Rome Right.John Fiege and it destroyed wetlands. And it it changed the dynamics of whether there were meadows or not. And this, this very lofty idea of fashion and what people thought of themselves, in a, in a distant land in Europe, had these very real and immediate environmental impacts on the landscape in North America. And that, to me, that seems to be such a perfect encapsulation of the power of what environmental history is combining those two things.Adam Rome You're right, you know, that's part of the

Can we learn from history? It depends on the historian! Hear the erudite Adam Rome reflect upon the roots of American conservation (interesting take), the Progressive Movement, the Dust Bowl, FDR, the Great Suburbanization, Earth Day and more. Adam and Brian emerge from the halls of history to reflect upon the steady-state prospects for the 21st century (with a plan to continue the dialog).

On the fiftieth anniversary of Earth Day, Ralph welcomes environmental historian, Adam Rome, author of “The Genius of Earth Day: How a 1970 Teach-In Unexpectedly Made the First Green Generation.” And the Green Cowboy, S. David Freeman returns to talk about the state of the environment today. Plus, we debut a special song in honor of Earth Day.

On the fiftieth anniversary of Earth Day, Ralph welcomes environmental historian, Adam Rome, author of “The Genius of Earth Day: How a 1970 Teach- In Unexpectedly Made the First Green Generation.” And the Green Cowboy, S. David Freeman returns to talk about the state of the environment today. Plus, we debut a special song in honor of Earth Day.

Earth Day was founded by Wisconsin's very own Gaylord Nelson. Then a senator, and former Wisconsin governor, Nelson had a simple idea for a day of awareness for the planet.  The year was 1970. Gas was cheap. There were no regulations like the Clean Air Act or the Clean Water Act to keep factories from polluting our air, land, and water. A rising consciousness after several environmental disasters had the country buzzing with a desire to do more. His idea took off, and millions joined in across the country. Today, Earth Day is celebrated by more than a billion people around the globe. Nelson's daughter, Tia, is paving the way for his legacy to live on through her environmental advocacy. She is the managing director on climate at the Outrider Foundation. In this episode, she sheds light on her father's work, what Earth Day means to her and how you can get involved.Learn more about Nelson's legacy in the spring issue of Wisconsin Natural Resources Magazine: https://dnr.wi.gov/wnrmag/ Learn more about Outrider Foundation at https://outrider.org/features/earth-day-film/--------------------------------------TRANSCRIPTAnnouncer: [00:00:00] Welcome to Wisconsin DNRs Wild Wisconsin - Off The Record podcast, information straight from the source.Katie Grant: [00:00:12] Welcome back to another episode of Wild Wisconsin - Off The Record. I'm your host, DNRs digital media coordinator, Katie Grant. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. That's 50 years of living, changing and advancing. In 1970 a gallon of gas was 36 cents. The Beatles released, "Let it be" and then later broke up and a quarter would get you a dozen eggs. It was also the year of the very first Earth Day founded by former Wisconsin governor Gaylord Nelson. It was a time when factories pumped pollutants into the air, lakes and rivers with few repercussions. Gas guzzling cars ruled the roads. Before 1970 there was no EPA, no Clean Air Act, and no Clean Water Act.Then a senator, Gaylord Nelson, had an idea to raise awareness about air and water pollution. His idea took off and on the first Earth Day in 1970 millions of Americans participated in rallies, marches and teach-ins for environmental education across the country. Earth Day catalyzed a movement in the United States that founded the Environmental Protection Agency and ignited a spirit of stewardship that has driven progress for five decades.Today, Earth Day is celebrated around the world with billions of people participating in their own way. Although Gaylord Nelson passed away in 2005, his legacy lives on through his daughter, Tia, who was 14 at the time of the first Earth Day. She has since followed in her father's environmental protection footsteps.Today, Tia Nelson is the managing director on climate for the Outrider Foundation. She is internationally recognized as a champion for environmental stewardship and climate change. Before the Safer at Home order, we spoke with Tia in early March to hear more about her father's life work, what Earth Day means to her and how you can get involved.Just because most of us are at home doesn't mean you can't celebrate Earth Day this year as we all do what we can to slow the spread of COVID-19, the DNR encourages you to celebrate 50 years of Earth Day close to home. Be sure to practice social distancing if you're out in the community. At the Wisconsin DNR, we embrace Earth Day 365. For us, every day is Earth Day. Sit back and listen in to how a Wisconsin senator helped establish Earth Day 50 years ago and how his daughter keeps his memory alive today. Tia Nelson: [00:02:37] My name is Tia Nelson. I'm managing director for the climate change program at the Outrider Foundation. We seek to educate, engage, and inspire action on big global challenges like climate change, help people understand the risks, but importantly also help them understand the opportunities to be a part of the solution.Katie Grant: [00:03:00] Fantastic. So you could be doing anything in the world. Why are you so passionate about the environment? Tia Nelson: [00:03:07] I have always had a love of nature. I spent a lot of time in the outdoors as a child. I went on to study wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin. I had wanted to be a veterinarian, but I'm pretty severely dyslexic, and so I struggled in school and once I found out that veterinarians had to go to school as long as doctors did, I figured that wasn't the best path for me.And I had the real privilege to study under, uh Joe Hickey, uh, who had done really important early work on how DDT was thinning, uh, eggshells and impairing, uh, the reproduction of bird species, especially, uh, predators, um, in Wisconsin and across the country. It was a big inspiration to my father who then went on to introduce the first bill to ban the use of DDT.So I was, uh, influenced, um, by great professors like Joe Hickey, uh, Orin, Ronstead, uh, Bob McCabe. Um, Bob was Dean of the Wildlife Ecology school. When I, uh, started attending the university and he actually inscribed, uh, and gave to my father the first day that my father was sworn in as governor, uh, a inscribed first edition copy of the Sand County Almanac with a beautiful inscription in it. I haven't here on my desk, um saying, um, "with and in between the lines of this book, you shall find great wisdom." Um, so I guess that's a long way of saying that, uh, nature was imbued in me as a child just as it was for my father, and I just seem to gravitate to the issue naturally and studied it in school and went on to work in the Capitol.I worked for the DNR as a fisheries technician summertimes while I was in college. It was a great job. Um, it's always been my life's work and my passion. Katie Grant: [00:05:07] Yeah. Did you ever feel pressure to work in the environmental space or you just knew it was what you wanted to do? Tia Nelson: [00:05:13] I just did it. It just was me. It was just a part of me and, uh, a keen interest of mine from a very young age.Uh, it must have obviously been influenced by my father and his work. Um, but I don't remember an epiphany moment. Um, it simply was imbued in me from a very early age, and it wasn't something that I honestly gave a lot of thought to. It was just who I was. Katie Grant: [00:05:43] Tell us a little bit about your father's legacy. For anyone who doesn't know, why is he so important to Wisconsin and Earth Day in general? Tia Nelson: [00:05:50] Well, my father grew up in a small town called Clear Lake in Polk County in northwestern Wisconsin. Not far from the St. Croix River where he camped and fished and canoed and his experiences in nature as a child had a big influence on him.The places his father took him, uh, the St. Croix, uh, which I just mentioned. Also, they visited the Apostle Islands. It's interesting for me to reflect on the fact that those childhood experiences in nature here in these magnificent, uh, natural landscapes in Wisconsin became inspiration for him once he was elected to office.And he served in the state senate for 10 years. He became governor when I was two. In 1958, he was elected and he became known pretty quickly as across the country as the conservation governor, principally because of a bold initiative that he put forward to tax uh, put a penny, a pack tax on cigarettes to fund the Outdoor Recreation Action Program --known by the acronym OREP -- uh, to fund, uh, the protection, uh, of public recreation lands for the citizens of Wisconsin, and to create opportunities for, uh, fishing and hunting and recreating. And that program was wildly popular and, uh, drew a lot of national attention, the National Boating Magazine, um, in I think around 1960, um, their front page was "All Eyes on Wisconsin" with a picture of the state of Wisconsin. And my, an image of my father overlaid and a story about how the, the great, uh, conservation innovation that was taking place in Wisconsin.So that was my father's, um, early efforts as governor, he took that experience and the popularity of that program, which is now known as the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund, named after my father and Republican governor Warren Knowles, who succeeded my father when my father was elected to the senate. Um, uh, so Wisconsin's had a long bipartisan tradition of support for those types of initiatives.The OREP program was wildly popular, um, to members of both parties. My father went off to Washington as the United States senator. He took with him a scrapbook of all the good press that he'd gotten for, uh, pushing, uh, conservation and outdoor recreation, uh, agenda as governor in Wisconsin. And, uh, he managed using that, good press that he'd received here in Wisconsin to convince President John F. Kennedy to do a conservation tour. My father was looking for a way to get politicians to wake up to the fact that the, uh, citizens, uh, were eager and interested in, uh, passing laws that protected our rights to breathe clean air and drink clean water and, uh, protect, uh, outdoor recreation areas. The conservation tour failed to accomplish what my father had hoped. Um, indeed, it was cut short after a few stops, as I recall. Um, and, um, sadly, President Kennedy was assassinated several months after that conservation tour, and it was between 1963 and 1969 my father continuing to push and talk about the environmental challenges of our time. And to try to think of an idea that might galvanize, um, uh, the people and, uh, shake as my father said, shake the political establishment out of their lethargy, um, and, uh, step up to address the big environmental challenges of our time.Keep in mind that Lake Eerie was so polluted at the time, um, that it had burned for days. Um, and, uh, today you can, uh, fish some good walleye out of there. Katie Grant: [00:10:15] Right. Right. Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old, uh, Swedish environmental activist has gained international recognition for her climate strikes. She's also known for, having said "adults keep saying we owe it to the young people to give them hope, but I don't want your hope. I don't want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to act as if the house, house is on fire because it is." How does it make you feel to see her and other young activists who are leading the environmentalist fight? And do you think they fit with your father's legacy? Tia Nelson: [00:10:48] Yes, they certainly do.It's really, the story of Greta Thunberg is, um, a really inspiring one, and it is one that I reflect on quite often for the following reason. It would have been impossible for Greta to imagine when she was sitting alone protesting in front of the Swedish parliament that that simple act of defiance would launch the global youth movement just as Rosa Parks could not have known that that simple act of defiance saying no to that bus driver when he demanded she moved to the back of the bus, she simply quietly said one word, no. It changed the course of history. Just as my father could never have known that the simple idea of setting aside a day to teach on the environment on April 22nd, 1970, would launch the environmental movement, propel the environmental movement forward in these unimaginable ways.Keep in mind there was no Environmental Protection Agency. Uh, it was signed into law by a Republican president, Richard Nixon. Um, some months after the first Earth Day, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, uh, Endangered Species Act, a whole slew of laws that we take for granted today, passed that first decade after Earth Day. More environmental laws were passed, um, in the decade that followed that first Earth Day than any other time in American history. And so Greta's story is inspiring to me and the way that Rosa Parks story is inspiring in the way that my father's story is inspiring. These were individuals who had a set of values and cared passionately about something, and they took action and they kept at it and they changed the course of history. It demonstrates to me the power of individual action to inspire others to become involved and be a part of the solution. And that to me is, is incredibly inspiring. Earth Day was successful beyond my father's wildest dreams. He never could have imagined that 20 million people would gather on that day or that 50 years later we would be celebrating his legacy in this way.Katie Grant: [00:13:20] Right. Tia Nelson: [00:13:20] And I, and, and I, I think that, that people on the 100th anniversary of Earth Day, uh, will be saying the same thing about Greta Thunberg and the youth activists around the world who have done exactly what my father had hoped youth would do and youth did do that first Earth Day. It shook up the establishment and made them pay attention.Katie Grant: [00:13:45] Right, right. You've mentioned in past interviews that you have a kind of fuzzy memory when it comes to what you were doing on that first Earth Day. As you got older, though. Do you recall any of your father's continuing work with regard to Earth Day? Tia Nelson: [00:14:02] Um, yes. Well, I, I was almost 14 when the first Earth Day occurred and I did not remember what I was doing.I, of course, get asked this question quite often. I, you know, was tempted to make up a good story, but I thought better of it. Uh, the way I learned that I was cleaning up trash at my junior high school is I was doing a talk show, a radio talk show, and one of my, uh, um, friends from junior high called and said, you were with me, we were picking up trash. So, um, but as the years, um, ensued, uh, I think it really dawned on me the significance of Earth Day on the 20th anniversary. I was on the Washington Mall with my father for the 20th anniversary. That was a magnificently large, um, and significant anniversary event. And it was pretty obvious that this would be a big, and enduring, um, uh, thing for a long time, uh, to come.My father worked tirelessly and he also he, he felt very, uh, drawn and very duty-bound to speak to youth. And he accepted the smallest school. If the kids wrote him a letter and asked him to come speak to them about the issues, the environment, he went. Um, he saw great promise in our youth. He knew that, uh, it were, that it was the young people in 1970 that, uh, made such a big difference, uh, in, in the success of that event.And so he would give speeches to big audiences. He would give talks to little schools. Uh, he was tireless in his advocacy, outreach and, um, public efforts to engage people because he saw the power, uh, of, um, doing that. And so, um, he was, uh, tireless, and in, in delivering that message and traveling around, giving talks, visiting schools, giving media interviews and doing everything he could to continue to advance the cause.Katie Grant: [00:16:20] When you spoke with us, uh, for our article in the Wisconsin Natural Resources magazine, you said one of the reasons the first Earth Day was so successful was because of the way it grew organically at the local level, rather than being planned from the top down. Why do you think the simplistic approach worked in his, kind of made it work for the last 50 years? Tia Nelson: [00:16:40] If you look at the first Earth Day, there were literally thousands of organizers in, um, communities across the country. My father did not prescribe a specific agenda. He didn't tell him what issues they should be talking about. He encouraged people to think about what they cared about, where they lived, what the challenges, the environmental challenges, quality of life challenges, were, wherever they lived, uh, whether it was in, uh, the city or the countryside. Um, and people responded, I think if you look at Adam Rome's book, he interviewed over 140 people, um, dozens and dozens and dozens of these local organizers. And one thing that's obvious is by not prescribing what the agenda was and what the issues were and how my father, uh, trying to prescribe from Washington what people were supposed to do, but rather letting them identify their priorities and values, um, uh, where, where they lived, um, and worked, uh, and raised their families.Um, that was very powerful. So some people planted trees, some people picked up trash, some people protested, some people had concerts. I have images of the, uh, Earth Day, uh, on State Street. State Street was closed and, uh, an entomologist and in, you know, a professor of insects, uh, set up a booth. A rather shabby looking one at that, uh, with information about the importance of insects as pollinators.Um, my point is, uh, whether it was entomologists educating people on the importance of bees as a pollinator, uh, or, uh, uh, Girl Scout troop picking up trash and in their local neighborhood or another group, um, planting trees, um, people felt empowered to take action in a way that was meaningful to them.And in, in not trying to control what people did and how they did it and how they messaged around it, um, turned out to be really, uh, uh, a stroke of genius on my father's part. Katie Grant: [00:19:07] For sure. For sure. So over the years, I'm sure you have participated in Earth Day and a lot of different ways, uh, do you have any particularly memorable ways that you have celebrated it?Tia Nelson: [00:19:20] Um, well, they're all meaningful to me. It's always been important for me to honor my father and my own, uh, life's work on Earth Day. It's particularly been important to me to, uh, tell his story to kids um, so that they understand that my father was just a little boy from a little town, um, in Wisconsin, and he grew up to change the world in unimaginable ways, and I want kids to know they have that power, too.Um, so I have always done as much as I can, uh, uh, some local events, media events, um, uh, try to talk to, uh, schoolkids, uh. This year is different though. This year I have a spreadsheet with, gosh, close to 40, um, appearances, interviews, podcasts, like the one we're doing now. Um. Uh, I'm very proud, very excited that we'll be debuting a, uh, uh, film, uh, at Earth X, the largest environmental film fest in the United States in Dallas, Texas on Earth... on the eve of Earth Day.We'll be opening that, uh, Earth X event. Uh, we will be closing out the Smithsonian's Earth Optimism event on April 25th. Uh, the day the mall or a mall event will occur. We've been invited to show at Tribeca Film Fest, uh, in New York and are still trying to figure out whether we can do all of these things in, in the short timeframe of a week.Uh, I will be showing the film at the University of Wisconsin Nelson.. Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies on Monday, April 20th. Uh, and what's exciting to me about the film is I recruited the youth activists Varshini Prakash, co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, and Bob Inglis, the former Republican congressman, founder of a group called RepublicEN.Uh, the two of them have joined me, uh, in this film to honor my father and in a call to action to people today to come together and address the biggest environmental challenge of our time, which is climate change. And that, uh, Bob and Varshini, uh, eh, are joining me and talking about the need for a multigenerational bi-partisan socially just movement to address climate change is just a source of enormous excitement and pride for me. So I'll be showing that film around the country. Uh, I will be doing more podcasts, more media interviews. Um, I'll be keynoting, uh, after Earth Day at the annual meeting of the United Church of Christ, uh, at the Midwest Renewable Energy fair up in Custer, Wisconsin. Um, I, I'll, I'll, I'll be tired by the time it's all done, but it's, uh, um, it's a good challenge to have and I just, I couldn't be more grateful or excited to have the opportunity to tell my father's story, the story of other activists today. Um, and to encourage people to get involved and, um, be a part of, uh, building a brighter future.Katie Grant: [00:22:40] At what point did you and your family really start getting the sense that Earth Day had become something special? And did you guys ever discuss how big of a deal it had become?Tia Nelson: [00:22:51] Um, well, sure. I talked to my brothers about it, uh, on a regular basis. I'm updating them on the stuff I'm involved in, uh, here.But, uh, as I mentioned a little earlier in our interview, I think it probably first dawned on me, what a big deal it was on, uh, probably the 10th or the 20th anniversary. Um, that it was clearly going to be an enduring, um, event, uh, in a part of an important part of my father's legacy. Um, and the family's talked about it.Um, you know, we talk about it all the time. Uh, so, um, but especially, you know, this time of year. Katie Grant: [00:23:31] What are a few ways Wisconsinites and beyond Wisconsin can embrace your father's legacy and celebrate Earth Day this year? Tia Nelson: [00:23:38] Well, there's an unlimited number of things one can get involved in or be a part of, uh, you in, in your local community, um, or, uh, through, uh, established organizations. And that was one of the things that was really exciting to me about the video we've produced the, uh, the Sunrise Movement is very oriented towards youth activists. Uh, RepublicEN is oriented towards a more conservative audience. What they share in common is prioritizing, addressing the issue of climate change and, um, uh, the future of our environment.There's really literally an organization for anyone and everyone to join, uh, and there's, uh, uh, website, uh, the Earth Day Network has a site where you can go plug in your zip code and it'll show you, uh, local events here in Madison. I invite everyone to attend the University of Wisconsin Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies Earth Day, um, celebration, which goes on, is really going to be fabulous this year and has a number of significant national speakers, uh, and workshops. And that's on April 20th, all day at Monona Terrace. Uh, there are, um, uh, more local activities one could get involved in, uh, if you don't feel like joining a group. You can, uh, do something with your neighbors or friends um, uh, that, uh, would be probably pretty similar to what people were doing in 1970 deciding, you know, how they wanted to get involved, whether they wanted to go pick up trash or plant trees or join an organization. And, uh, there's sort of an unlimited in terms of, of what one can do because every, every individual action matters and, and people, um, uh, have an opportunity to get involved in any number of ways. Katie Grant: [00:25:48] Yeah. So at Wisconsin DNR, we are embracing Earth Day 365 and encouraging residents to take small steps all year so that taking care of our natural resources isn't just a thing that we think about once a year. Do you have any suggestions for small steps that people can take to make a difference?Tia Nelson: [00:26:05] There's a number of powerful small steps one can take from reducing food waste to avoiding single-use plastic to composting food scraps to using energy-efficient appliances to things like ... Funny little fact to know and tell is that something called phantom power, meaning our devices plugged into the wall when we're not using them probably about 15% of average home owner's electricity consumption. Simply unplugging those appliances when you're not using them, uh, is a way to save energy and it saves money. Um, so, um, being a conscious consumer, uh, being aware of one's impact, uh, on the planet, knowing that, you know, one of my favorite quotes from my father is "the economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment. Not the other way around." And so um, we have to recognize that our natural resource base is finite, um, and that we have to be good stewards of it. And that individual action, how we conduct ourselves in our daily life really does matter. Um, voting for, um, uh elected officials, whether it at the local or state level, who put forward policies that protect our rights to breathe clean air and drink clean water is really important. Outrider.org has a section, um, about how you can help. Uh, it includes a way to assess, uh, your personal greenhouse gas footprint and things that you can do to, um, reduce it.So, um, get involved. Talk about it. Take action and join an organization that suits your particular interest.Katie Grant: [00:28:02] At a time when there can be a lot of doom and gloom in the news, how do you stay optimistic about the future of our environment? Tia Nelson: [00:28:08] I often say I'm in a complicated dance between hope and despair.You can't be involved every day of your life in the environmental challenges that we face today and not be concerned. Uh, the science tells us we have a lot to be worried about. On the other hand, I know the power of individuals to make a difference. I know how on that first Earth Day, a simple call to action, uh, precipitated significant progress in how we manage our resources and, uh, protect our environment. And so I reflect on my father's legacy and work. I reflect on the fact that he worked tirelessly and was, felt a sense of defeat, um, many, many times, but he got up the next day and went back to work and made significant progress.And I believe in American ingenuity. I know that we have a bright future of clean and renewable energy. That today renewable energy is... costs less than fossil fuel energy. We have some big challenges as we make that transition, but we know what the solutions are. And, uh, it's a question of creating the social will and political capital to move forward, uh, swiftly with a sense of urgency to address these challenges. And I believe we can do it, but we, we have to join together. That's why I'm so excited about the film with Bob Inglis and Varshini Prakash. They have very, very different ideas about what the solution is. That doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is that they've come to the table to have a conversation about how we can work together and solve these big environmental challenges. That's what matters. And as long as we're having the conversation and agreeing that the problem requires an urgent response, we'll find a way to build the social capital and the political will to act.And so that is how I think about it and motivate myself to carry on the work. Katie Grant: [00:30:34] You've been listening to Wild Wisconsin, a podcast brought to you by the Wisconsin DNR. Show us on social media how you're celebrating Earth Day this year by using #EarthDayAtHome and tagging Wisconsin DNR in your posts.For more great content, be sure to subscribe to Wild Wisconsin wherever you get your podcasts. Leave us a review or tell us who you'd like to hear from on a future episode. Thanks for listening.

April 22, 1970. Nearly 20 million Americans come out in solidarity for one of the largest mass movements of the century. It was called Earth Day. And 50 years later, we still celebrate this day. But in 1970, this call to action crossed the aisle and brought major change to Washington, a feat that seems almost impossible today. Why did that first-ever Earth Day bring such a huge number of Americans—from across the political spectrum—out into the streets? And what might it take to unite the country again?Special thanks to our guests:Adam Rome, author of "The Genius of Earth Day: How a 1970 Teach-In Unexpectedly Made the First Green Generation" and professor of Environment and Sustainability at the University at Buffalo.Jerry Yudelson, MS, MBA, LEED Fellow Emeritus and Author of "The Godfather of Green: An Eco-Spiritual Memoir" See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On April 22, 1970, a conservative senator from Wisconsin led a diverse, national circle of organizers is bringing public attention to environmental issues of the day. Earth Day has since become the largest civic event on the planet its events strives to protect.                         Dr. Adam Rome, Professor of History at SUNY Buffalo, has made a passionate study of this worldwide phenomenon. He shares insights from his 2013 book, "The Genius of Earth Day: How a 1970 Teach-In Unexpectedly Made the First Green Generation."  Earthworms host Jean Ponzi swaps Earth Day bits with Dr. Rome from her experience as coordinator of the 20th annual Earth Day Festival in 1990, that helped launch today's vibrant St. Louis Green culture. Adam Rome will be in St. Louis on May 24 to give the capstone presentation in the 2018 Environmental History Speaker Series. This is a free talk at 7 pm at the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park. Music: Modern Andy Down - performed live at KDHX Thanks to Anna Holland, Earthworms engineer, and to Stephen Hanpeter, Sappington Concord Historical Society. Related Earthworms Conversations: David and the Giant Mailbox, December 2015 - "Climate Walker" David Henry also presented in this 2018 Environmental History Speaker Series. Earth Day St. Louis, April 2018  

Legalizing green sanitation, kite safety through cartwheels, coming back from serious crisis, and all the ways your shower can kill you. In this special live episode, polymath Mathew Lippincott enlightens Shawn Shafner (The Puru) with his encyclopedic knowledge of everything. A designer who creates future technologies influenced by history, Mathew tells us how he helped create Portland’s emergency sanitation protocol, worked with RECODE to make compost toilets a legal option, and takes us under the leach field to see why most septic tank users are pooping straight into their aquifers. PLUS Shawn tells stories of his travels in Nicaragua, reveals the origins of “justify your existence,” we redeem the value of outside defecation, and learn why it might be best to hold your breath the next time you visit a PortaPotty. Also mentioned in this episode: West Side Story, lunar colony, industrial design, University of Pennsylvania, Center for Social Impact, Global Social Impact House, Nicaragua, crisis, Joseph Campbell, hero’s journey, the origins of justify your existence, privilege, poverty, El Porvenir, Public Lab, crowdsource data, Deepwater Horizon, presence, safety, Kite Man, Portland, Oregon, airline travel, REN Project, Wayne RESA, curriculum development, Michigan, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Guerilla Science Group, Oregon Eclipse Festival, shower, sink, low-flow toilet, design object, Victor Papanek, Design for the Real World, basic human needs, consumer society, James Hennessey, How Things Don’t Work, unbalanced mixer valves, pressure valves, intentional community, bucket toilet,Molly Jean Winter (née Danielsson), sepsis, Art Monastic Laboratory, bucket system, majority world country, libraries, ARPANET, OhioLINK, apocalypse, interlibrary loan, Clara Greed, Alexander Kira, Joel Tarr, Carnegie Mellon, Cloacina, Cloaca, Rome, portable compost toilet, Henry Moule, Australia, Natural Event, Pootopia, Hamish Skermer, green, sustainability, Adam Rome, Bulldozer in the Countryside, primary treatment, scum, leach field, aquifer, laminar flow, Pacific NorthWest College of Art, Neighborhood Emergency Training, Portland Bureau of Emergency Management, emergency sanitation, citizen science, Uniform Plumbing Code, Rich Earth Institute, 20/20 Engineering, Greywater Action, Laura Allen, Watershed Management Group, John Grey, Interface Engineering, Nicole Cousino, Nature’s Commode, International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO), Green Supplement, American National Standards Institute (ANSI), WE Stand (Water Efficiency), public domain, NorthWest Permaculture Convergence, open defecation, family restroom

What if today's climate activists acted more like the scientists who spoke out on the first Earth Day? The post The Trouble with the March for Science: A Conversation with Adam Rome appeared first on Edge Effects.

Even amidst all of the domestic and international policy issues that come and go with each administration, perhaps the one that has the greatest staying power, is the environment. The roots and reasons go back almost thirty-five years. Originally conceived in September of 1969 as a nationwide environmental teach-in, the first Earth Day was a call to action that inspired thousands of events across the country. Becoming larger than the biggest civil rights and anti war demonstrations of the 60’s, roughly 1,500 colleges and 10,000 schools held teach-ins. Activities that took place in hundreds of churches and temples, in city parks and commercial and government buildings, it created a lasting “eco infrastructure.” And that first Earth Day in 1970 would give rise to the first green generation. University of Delaware Professor Adam Rome looks back in his book The Genius of Earth Day: How a 1970 Teach-In Unexpectedly Made the First Green Generation.My conversation with Adam Rome: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}