Earth Day Is Everyday
Earl Newman
Silkscreen, 1969/1970
Venice, California
7920
Earl Newman describes the origins of the poster:
It was the beginning
of more consciousness about recycling, and people trying to build more awareness…Israel
Feuer, activist with the Peace and Freedom Party, came up with the slogan,
“Earth Day is Everyday” before I came up with the design.
The first Earth Day, April
22, 1970 was marked by environmental teach-ins held throughout the U.S. Approximately
20 million Americans participated and this date marked the beginning of the
modern environmental movement. Thousands of colleges and universities organized
protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been
fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage,
toxic dumps, pesticides, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife
suddenly realized they shared common values. Now, more than 40 years later, the situation is worse and the climate is changing rapidly and very noticeably. The polar ice caps are melting faster than scientists had predicted, extreme weather is becoming the norm, and expanding swaths of oceans and lakes are becoming dead zones where no marine life can survive due to depleted oxygen levels caused by pesticide runoff. In 2004, 146 dead zones in the world's oceans were reported. A 2008 study counted 405 dead zones worldwide. Meanwhile, new ways of polluting our air, soil and water are increasingly profitable therefore actively supported by industry and government alike: from deep sea oil drilling, to fracking, to transporting tar sands across some of the most fertile and fragile agricultural land in the country.
Adding insult to injury, the Koch Brothers and their cohorts in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), continue to try to destroy support for renewable energy, state by state. In 2013, ALEC tried to repeal clean energy targets in 13 states and failed on all fronts. They are trying again in 2014. When will they ever learn?
Sources:
http://treealerts.org/region/north-america/2013/05/alec-fails-to-repeal-state-clean-energy-policies/
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