If you’re gearing up to celebrate Earth Day, I’ve got news for you. You missed it. Well, you missed what some argue is the original Earth Day.
Rest assured; the Earth Day you know and love is celebrated on April 22, and has been since 1970 when Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-Wisconsin) launched the Earth Day Network in an effort to co-opt the energy and angst of American student protesters—then so busy holding campus demonstrations against the Vietnam War—and apply it to environmental issues. After all, he’d just witnessed the Santa Barbara oil spill in 1969, which was the largest to date, and still the third largest in history after the Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon fiascos. 1969 was also the year that dewy-eyed television-watchers got a glimpse of the earth from outer space for the first time as we planted an American flag on the moon. Environmental awareness had been growing since Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring was published in 1962, and the hippies were starting to take Earth love on as a worthy cause célèbre. Senator Nelson had the environment on his mind, and implemented a solid plan to get it on the minds of others, too.
But, just one month earlier on March 21, 1970, peace activist John McConnell had already launched his own International Earth Day at the United Nations. McConnell’s Earth Day—formed concurrently but completely independently of Nelson’s Earth Day—begins on the vernal equinox, the exact moment that spring begins, and is marked by the ringing of the Peace Bell at the United Nations, followed by two minutes of silent reflection.
Needless to say, Nelson’s Earth Day in April has been a much larger success than McConnell’s. That guy really thought it through. He scheduled it in April to make sure that Earth Day wouldn’t conflict with college exams or Spring Break, because even activists were going to head to Fort Lauderdale to spend a week getting blitzed during Spring Break. While McConnell wanted a day to “celebrate the wonder of life on our planet,” Nelson wanted to organize a “national teach-in on the environment.” A month after McConnell rang the Peace Bell and silently reflected, Nelson activated an estimated 20 million demonstrators around the country calling for a healthy, sustainable environment. In years to follow, Nelson’s Earth Day movement led to the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency, a huge overhaul of the Clean Air Act, the passage of the Clean Water Act, the passage of the Endangered Species Act, a Climate Rally drawing 225,000 people to the National Mall, and now has more than a billion people participating around the globe each year. Nelson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton in 1995.
It’s not hard to see why Nelson’s Earth Day eclipsed McConnell’s Earth Day. One was about organizing people around sustainability, and the other was, well, more hippie-dippie. In his “Earth Magna Charta,” McConnell wrote:
Each year on Earth Day, March 20-21, the Peace Bell at the United Nations will ring at the moment spring begins. As this occurs, a celebration of life will cover our globe as bells ring in every community and people join in heartfelt love and devotion to the care of this nest in the stars: Earth, our wonderful home.
The International Earth Day in March was intended not just to bring attention to environmentalism, but rather a much grander vision of peace on earth as people lived in perfect “harmony with neighbor and nature.” He believed that natural resources belonged to no one, that everyone shared in that inheritance, so those who profit off of the earth should pay a 2% “royalty” that would go straight to the homeless so they could also profit off of what was rightfully, partially theirs. He called for a shared morality that would root out greed and deception, and thought his Earth Campaign could solve that problem. He posited that every religion believes in some version of the Golden Rule, establishing a common ground between them, and that a shared sense of responsibility to care for the planet would expand that common ground and foster peace. McConnell had a grand vision of a populist movement that would grow organically as people everywhere signed up to become Earth Trustees, thus establishing a global Shangri-La.
While McConnell dreamed of that day, Nelson was getting shit done.
I suspect McConnell was a little butt-hurt about it, too. On his website, which looks even older than the original Space Jam website, he says:
While other dates have been called Earth Day it is obvious that a singular Earth Day is needed and that the original choice of nature’s day is best. More attention for this fact will increase the influence of Earth Day and its benefits.
Every effort to encourage Earth care is to be commended. But just as more than one birthday each year for an individual would diminish the real birthday, calling other dates Earth Day detracts from the authentic day — which can provide a more meaningful focus and obtain more unity in our diversity. The nature of the March equinox provides a reason for an event at the same time all over the world.
It’s kind of sad, really. McConnell’s International Earth Day is only “original” and “authentic” by a month and there’s no reason to believe that Nelson was a copy-cat, or even could have organized such a huge first event in the short time after McConnell launched his Earth Day. Still, McConnell thought that other, less authentic Earth Days coming over to join him on the equinox day would “increase the influence of Earth Day and its benefits,” while a BILLION people in 192 countries participate in April, most of whom, I’d be willing to bet, have never even heard of the “original” Earth Day. (John McConnell died in 2012 at the age of 97.)
Still, I find myself fascinated by John McConnell. Reading the materials on his website is like digging up a time capsule of a young idealist who believed that he, by his very nature, would change the world, the gravity of his big ideas drawing the multitudes into orbit around him. McConnell had noble intentions and a grand vision of Utopian equipoise and equanimity, and who wouldn’t want that?
His outline for the nature of communications now seems quaint:
Our new global communications with its Information Superhighway can under this Charter bring rapid change to heal, nurture and improve life on Earth. To accomplish this requires a radical change in attitudes and policies of mass media. They must seek in every way possible to define and further Earth Trustee goals. While plans and methods for achieving goals will differ, affirming points of accord will increase harmony and accommodation. The new policy will be, “Accent the positive, headline solutions, pursue excellence. Give honest assessment of things as they are and then with creative vision, aided by computer data, show the better future that intelligent decisions will bring – with follow-up on actions taken and their results.”
Beyond it’s recognition of the usefulness of the “Information Superhighway” (what we commonly call the Internet) and its call to use “computer data” (what we commonly call, well, data), McConnell’s idea here is to get mass media to fall in line and follow an Earth Trustee agenda through the use of propaganda. The “honest assessment of things as they are,” or reporting current facts, is paired with the need for the media to present vision and speculation of a projected, idyllic future that would be brought about if everyone just adopted McConnell’s philosophy.
In fact, he called for the media to do something else, too, which looks even more like propaganda:
To this end, every radio, television station and newspaper who endorses this Earth Magna Charta will join the Campaign for Earth, reporting problems and progress; radio and television stations will carry daily non-verbal Earth Minutes at designated times – 0300, 1100 and 1900 GMT. These non-verbal minutes of inspirational music, views of children and natural wonders, will remind us we are all connected and working for one goal – Earth’s rejuvenation. Simultaneous and world-wide, they will deepen our awareness.
Worldwide media sources projecting images in concert at the exact same moment to embed a non-verbal message in the minds of all who watch? This starts to feel a little culty, as if John McConnell is Joe Carroll in Fox’s show The Following, with disciples (registered Earth Trustees) embedded in useful companies and organizations around the world and holding positions of influence. Or, because he wasn’t going around, you know, murdering people (or asking anyone else to, either), maybe Karl Marx is a more apt comparison. But in many ways, McConnell’s ideas sound like a religion that will absorb and supplant other religions until we have global harmony. His doctrine is ostensibly Messianic in the whole “I am the way, the truth and the light” kind of way. From the outset, he says:
The people of planet Earth have the raw materials, natural resources, and the technology for all to enjoy a life of quality. But they are still restricted by the evil that has dominated history. They lack the vision of the great future now possible and how to attain it. As a result, the world is filled with confusion and conflict.
This Earth Magna Charta provides the needed vision and the way
[emphasis added]. Individuals and institutions can now be trustees of Earth, seeking in ecology, economics and ethics policies and decisions that will benefit people and planet. In the present state of the world, this Space Age trustee concept has a chance of tapping the best in human hopes and aspirations and providing a healthy, innovative and fulfilling future for our planet and its people. In this new future, deeds will demonstrate what is best in creeds. Young Earth Trustees will lead the way.
For these young trustees, he prescribes a program of arts and crafts from the first year of their lives.
I’ll admit that I haven’t read McConnell’s book Earth Day: Visions of Peace, Justice, and Earth Care: My Life and Thought at Age 96
Environmentalism is important, so I’m thankful that someone like Senator Nelson came along at the same time to actually organize people around more practical principles. While McConnell was building a religion, Nelson was building a campaign. While McConnell was busy trying to get converts by preaching his own unique beatitudes, Nelson was busy opening regional offices, holding parades, working with politicians, communicating with campuses, strategizing media attention, and organizing groups of people around basic ideas of sustainability. A lot less woo-woo, a lot more effective.
But, good job, McConnell, for that whole Peace Bell thing.
