The Big Picture –
By Glynn Wilson –

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Millions of people all over the world came out on April 22, 1970 to celebrate the first Earth Day, and the era of environmental activism was launched.

The movement was an evolution from the non-violent activism for civil rights and against the war in Vietnam, and it made a huge difference at the time. Even the corrupt, conservative Nixon administration and Republicans in Congress had to respond, passing the first environmental laws for clean air and water and establishing the Environmental Protection Agency.

Later, after he was reelected in 1972 and right before Nixon resigned in disgrace in the Watergate scandal, he famously complained to aides about why people hated him so much. “I did what the goddamned New York Times said I should do.”

The coverage of that first Earth Day by The New York Times was pretty pedestrian. But the old grey lady did run a large black and white photograph above the fold, indicating the movement’s arrival, importance and salience, in news parlance.

Millions Join Earth Day Observances Across the Nation

For the next decade, progress was made on many fronts. Cleanups began in rivers, lakes and streams, and technology was developed to clean up the air from power plant and automobile pollution.

But in a classic case of one step forward two steps back, the Reagan administration sided with big business and shot broad sides at environmentalism for political purposes, and the air and water just continued to get worse.

By the time Reagan was out of office and diagnosed with Alzheimers, scientists began talking about global warming from the burning of fossil fuels. I wrote my first stories about pollution for newspapers in the 1980s, and by 1989, I was writing about global warming, quoting scientists and Sierra Club experts for newspapers on the Gulf Coast. In 1990, I won awards for environmental stories and was named a fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science for my coverage.

But some of that coverage riled big business leaders, chamber of commerce types and U.S. military brass, and I had to flee the Gulf Coast for grad school, where I ended up pioneering academic research into media effects on public opinion on environmental issues.

The work was controversial, of course, since it went against the grain of so-called “objective” news reporting by big business newspaper publishers, who did not want to remind readers that entire forests had to be clear-cut to make the paper to print the news. And no one wanted to talk about all the oil and gas it took to deliver the paper to everyone’s suburban house.

The good news is about that time as personal computers were coming into those same homes, the internet and web came along and news could be delivered with no paper through phone and cable lines.

We almost got an out of the closet environmentalist elected president in 2000, but once again, a step forward resulted in two steps back, and another Bush for big business waltzed into the White House via the Supreme Court.

I went back to covering politics around that time, since it became obvious that without electing the right kind of politicians, the Earth was going to remain at risk.

In the years to follow, as disaster after disaster struck the planet and people started talking about “climate change,” my thinking on these issues evolved. I continued to write about the problems periodically, but I won’t bore you all the details of all that. Many readers here have been following me for years, so my views are well known.

But on this Earth Day, 2022, I would like to suggest a new framing of the issue. The problem is not to “save the planet.” If not for the ongoing pollution of the planet by humans, the Earth could take care of itself.

The real problem we face is trying to keep human life livable on planet Earth. The hotter it gets due to greenhouse gases from fossil fuel burning, the harder it is going to be to enjoy living here. That’s the real issue.

The planet would be fine if not for the ignorance of Homo sapiens. We appear to be hellbent on bringing about our own destruction. I honestly think if the entire media establishment would report it that way, it would make a difference.

But they can’t, because the economy for producing news is still way too dependent on all the destructive technologies that seem to be on the verge of bringing about our doom.

If half the energy we spend on distracting people from their troubles and the real problems were to be turned toward solving the problems, I have no doubt we could turn things around.

There are lots of smart people trying to bring about the change we need. But in these days of social media distraction, they can’t seem to compete with the TikTok Tramps.

Some people on Facebook and Twitter seem to have hope for the next generation. But the New York Times today is quoting some of those young people, who plan to march and rally in Washington, D.C. and other cities on Saturday, which is good.

Yet they are being quoted blaming the problem on President Joe Biden, who has been trying to do much to turn things around.

“Young people elected Joe Biden to take action,” said Vincent Vertuccio, one of those quoted by the Times. “If we do not see climate action taken, I think that will be a massive betrayal from the Democratic Party to young people.”

One Last Push: Climate Activists to Rally at White House and Across U.S.

Hey kid. It’s not Joe Biden’s fault. What are you going to do, vote for Trump in 2024?

Have you ever heard of Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia? How about Senator Mitch McConnell from Kentucky?

Why are there not massive protests and voter revolts in West Virginia and Kentucky?

The Biden administration just announced Tuesday that it is restoring key parts of the National Environmental Policy Act gutted by Trump, once again requiring that climate impacts be considered before federal agencies approve highways, pipelines and other major construction projects, and requiring more local input. The public hearing process for environmental impacts was gutted way back in the Bush years, when Vice President Dick Cheney ran the White House Council on Competitiveness.

The final rule announced Tuesday would require federal agencies to conduct an analysis of the greenhouse gases that could be emitted over the lifetime of a proposed project, as well as how climate change might affect new highways, bridges and other infrastructure. The rule, which takes effect in 30 days, would also ensure agencies give communities directly affected by projects a greater role in the approval process.

Of course big business opposes it. See the quotes in this “fair and balanced” coverage, which in addition to the web version, is still using billions of trees to deliver a print edition.

Biden Restores Climate to Landmark Environmental Law, Reversing Trump

Will we ever learn? Will it be in time? I honestly don’t know. But we have to keep trying, don’t we? Do we have a choice?

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