Earth Day’s Stanford roots – and the urgency of renewed activism

On January 28, 1969, an oil well off the coast of Santa Barbara, California blew out, spewing so much crude into the Pacific Ocean that the oil slick covered 800 square miles. The disaster killed more than 3,600 seabirds and unknown numbers of dolphins, elephant seals, sea lions and other marine animals and fouled 40 miles of beaches. Six months later, an oil slick on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio actually caught fire. Local residents shrugged because this was at least the twelfth time such a fire had occurred, but coming so soon after the Santa Barbara debacle, the blaze drew outsized national attention. Historian James T. Patterson later wrote that these two events “aroused national alarm” about the environment.

One public official who heard the alarm was Democratic Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin. After visiting Santa Barbara in the summer of 1969 to see the devastation for himself, Nelson proposed a national environmental teach-in modeled after the anti-Vietnam War teach-ins being held on college campuses that fall. Nelson asked Republican Congressman Paul N. (Pete) McCloskey, Jr., ’50, JD ‘53, who represented the Stanford area in Congress from 1967 until 1983, to join him as co-chair of the group that would organize the first Earth Day. Nelson and McCloskey also hired Denis Hayes, ’69, JD ’85 to be the national coordinator of the group.

McCloskey helped to write the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which passed both houses of Congress 11 months after the Santa Barbara oil spill. NEPA created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and required the submission of a detailed environmental impact statement for every proposed major project in which the federal government is involved in certain ways. Historian Douglas Brinkley wrote that President Richard Nixon had tried to defeat NEPA, and signed it only after his Domestic Affairs Adviser, John D. Ehrlichman, JD ’51, persuaded him that it would be politically dangerous for him to ignore the environmental movement that was “catching fire.” Professor Patterson wrote that Nixon was “savvy enough not to swim against the tide of reform.”

McCloskey also helped to plan an Environmental Rights Day conference in Santa Barbara on the first anniversary of the oil spill, and spoke at the conference, along with Hayes and others. The conference served as a model for Earth Day teach-ins three months later.

Hayes had been the President of the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) during his senior year, and had been a leader of the anti-war movement on the campus. Later, he was one of the first members of the Stanford Board of Trustees who were elected by the alumni. He is currently the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Bullitt Foundation, an environmental nonprofit.

Other Stanford alumni who played important roles in the first Earth Day included Philip Taubman, ’70, who was editor-in-chief of The Daily while Hayes was student body president. He was the public affairs and publicity coordinator. Taubman later was a reporter and editor with the New York Times for many years, and, like Hayes, served on Stanford’s Board of Trustees. Garrett de Bell, ‘63, prepared and edited the instructional materials used for the teach-ins, which were published in book form as “The Environmental Handbook: Prepared for the First National Environmental Teach-In”. 

The first Earth Day, held on April 22, 1970, was a rousing success. As many as 20 million people — 10% of the American population at the time — participated in marches and rallies that day, 100,000 in New York City alone. About 2,000 colleges and universities held Earth Day teach-ins, as did 10,000 primary and secondary schools, involving 10 million students (including the author, then a junior in high school). More than 3,000 people gathered in White Plaza to listen to speeches and visit 40 Environmental Fair educational booths and 1,200 filled Memorial Church that evening for a panel discussion including remarks by McCloskey, two members of the faculty and others.

The resulting momentum was also extraordinary. Hayes told Stanford Magazine in 2018 that, “Legislation that had been unthinkable in 1969 became unstoppable in 1970.” In fact, Congress adopted 14 major pieces of environmental legislation between 1970 and 1975, including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act and the Endangered Species Act.

The work of McCloskey, Hayes, Taubman, de Bell and thousands of others built upon the legacies of a number of past Stanford faculty members who were early advocates for the environment and conservation, including Linus Pauling, Wallace Stegner and Paul Ehrlich. 

In the years since 1970, Earth Day has become the most widely observed secular holiday in the world, celebrated in nearly 200 countries. On Earth Day in 2016, the Paris Climate Accords, which aim to cap the global average temperature, were opened for signature in a ceremony at the United Nations. Nearly every nation in the world has signed the agreement.

But not all progress is permanent. President Trump has withdrawn the United States from the Paris Accords twice, once in each of his terms. He has vowed to “drill, baby, drill” for more oil and “immediately begin producing [more] energy with beautiful, clean coal.” His administration plans to cut the EPA’s budget by 65 percent. His EPA Administrator is committed to “defanging the climate religion” and has announced that he wants to roll back 31 regulations, including the finding that provides the scientific basis for addressing climate change, the regulation of water pollution from coal-fired power plants and motor vehicle emission standards. Trump has even issued an executive order trying to stop the states, including California, from enforcing their own environmental protection laws. In short, he and his administration want to turn the clock back 55 years.

We must say no to this reckless backsliding. Our health and safety and that of our children and grandchildren are at risk. This year’s Earth Day is the time for us to recommit ourselves to defending our environment from the existential threats posed by air and water pollution, toxic substances in our soil and especially climate change resulting from fossil fuel use. As Hayes said in 1999, “We know what to do. But can we summon the political will and courage to make it happen?” 

Jim Wascher ’75 is a retired attorney and judge. He was the editor-in-chief of Volume 164 of The Daily and is the vice president of the Friends of The Stanford Daily Foundation.

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