{"id":10091,"date":"2014-04-22T15:26:18","date_gmt":"2014-04-22T19:26:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=10091"},"modified":"2014-04-22T15:26:18","modified_gmt":"2014-04-22T19:26:18","slug":"celebrating-earth-day-in-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2014\/04\/22\/celebrating-earth-day-in-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating Earth Day in 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

What does Earth Day mean in 2014?<\/h2>\n
\"Nash<\/a>

Me and milkweed fruit \u2013 my #NatureSelfie<\/a> for #EarthDay<\/strong>.\u00a0 Nash Turley, a naturalist, photographer, musician, and PhD student in evolutionary ecology at the University of Toronto, snapped this shot in Ithaca, NY, in 2011. He tweeted, \u201cEveryday is Earth Day; the fact that the calendar says today is \u2018Earth Day\u2019 doesn\u2019t really mean anything to me. Sort of like how aboriginal cultures don\u2019t have a word for \u2018nature\u2019 because they didn\u2019t see themselves as separate from nature\u2026.the fact that we have a day for the Earth shows how disconnected modern societies are from \u2018nature\u2019.\u201d Credit, Nash Turley<\/a>.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cAt a conference in Seattle in September 1969, I announced that in the spring of 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment and invited everyone to participate. The wire services carried the story from coast to coast. The response was electric. It took off like gangbusters.\u201d ~ Gaylord Nelson<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The media loved the story. In 1969, when Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-Wis) called for the first Earth Day, people were ready for the revolution. It was the era of movements and teach-ins, and he spoke to a populace primed by Vietnam War protests and the Civil Rights movement. Americans were awakening to the costs of rapid industrialization. Soils were contaminated, waterways sterile and sometimes on fire<\/a>, animals disappearing, and acid rain visibly eroding the stone and metal of cities. Rachel Carson\u2019s message of a \u201cSilent Spring<\/i>\u201d had been sinking in for eight years (selling half a million copies).<\/p>\n

Nelson fomented environmental protest across the country, declared April 22, 1970<\/a> a day of nation-wide teach-ins on the crisis of the environment, and turned everyone loose to invent their own movement. It took on a life of its own. When the day arrived, twelve thousand loosely connected events involved millions of citizens, many at high schools and universities. Reflecting on it many years later, Nelson wrote, \u201cThat was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next few years ushered in the Environmental Protection Agency (created by none other than President Richard Nixon), the Clean Water Act<\/a>, and the Endangered Species Act<\/a>. Universities invented programs of environmental study. In the United States, the movement won victories on highly visible fronts.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Earth Day events are much more organized, but have lost the edge of grassroots fervor. It is hard to imagine a senator precipitating mass outrage over the environment in this decade. Perhaps today\u2019s battles to hold back climate change and the steady drain of biological diversity feel less tangible, less immediate, than the pollution of the 70s, and sometimes literally far away, in other countries. At some point, environmentalism crystallized out of the messy soup of social justice activism and acquired an unwelcome taint of privilege and frivolity. What does Earth Day mean in 2014?<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

\"NASA<\/a>

NASA sets up for Earth Day 2014 in Washington, DC\u2019s Union Station. Credit, NASA<\/a><\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n

At Washington, DC\u2019s Union Station, NASA has inflated a large, hollow hemi-globe. Inside, travelers mingle with school kids and NASA employees, driving simulated Mars rovers, tracking satellites<\/a>, and watching data displayed on a globe.<\/p>\n

Booths offer puzzles, games, electronics, and models to assemble. In the corner, two women demonstrate precipitation measurement from orbit and from the ground with a small diorama, a graduated cylinder, and a tablet computer. A raindrop-shaped handout explains the water cycle and the newly launched Global Precipitation Measurement<\/a> international satellite mission.<\/p>\n

There are stickers (everyone loves stickers) and holographic postcards displaying first the nightscape of the United States, then the nitrogen dioxide concentrations<\/a>, and finally the population density by county. It\u2019s all rather fun and beautiful, and the kids seem wide-eyed. A shy third grader helps me assemble a jigsaw image of the US capital and the Potomac\u2019s confluence with the Anacostia, captured from 700 kilometers up by Landsat<\/a> 7.<\/p>\n

John Grunsfeld , NASA\u2019s associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, bounds onto a stage backed by a photograph of the earth seen from orbit.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been to space four times, he tells the kids seated obediently around him, because I\u2019m an astronaut. Space is really cool, but the most beautiful thing you see is the earth. From space we can see the whole planet, and how it changes. That\u2019s what we do at NASA, he says: observe change on earth.<\/p>\n

\"NOAA's<\/a>

Earth Day, April 22, 2014 11:45 UTC\/7:45 a.m. EDT<\/strong>. NOAA\u2019s GOES-East satellite captured this stunning view of the Americas as convective (rapidly rising air that condenses and forms clouds) thunderstorms pepper Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay and northwestern and southeastern Brazil. Credit, NASA<\/a><\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n

The presentations that follow him are titled \u201cBelieve It or Not, Spring is Coming Earlier!\u201d and \u201cOur Planet is Changing: Perspective from Space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Banners hang around the main hall of the train station (which is powered by wind, we learn) displaying time series of development<\/a> and landscape change observed by Lansat satellites. Nearby, an Earth Day booth from the embassy of Bolivia<\/a> offers pamphlets and video about environmental conferences in Bolivia, agitating for social justice activism on global change.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many earths do we have?\u201d asks Grunsfeld. A passing traveler holds aloft his index finger. One.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Roundup of Earth Day events and activities<\/b>:<\/p>\n