April 22 marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. In 1970, some 20 million people in the United States participated in Earth Day events.
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Earth Day and Earth Week events still take place in cities, towns and campuses around the country. However, in a dramatic change from 1970, Earth Day has become big business. Countless corporations are using Earth Day as an opportunity to market “green” products from soy fiber stuffed animals to hybrid cars. Corporate polluters, such as Dow Chemical are sponsoring Earth Day events to cover for their environmental destruction. Even the oil giants like ExxonMobil have the audacity to repackage their operations as part of the “green” movement.
The first Earth Day was called during a period of militancy when the anti-Vietnam war movement was reaching its peak and oppressed communities across the nation were engaged in struggle against the capitalist class. While not the first manifestation of a movement for the environment, the mass, anti-corporate character of the 1970 Earth Day action distinguished it from earlier “conservationist” movements. While it was supported by significant sections of the ruling class, including senators, mayors and eventually President Nixon (who saw it as a way to improve his image), it retained a grassroots, anti-corporate character.
The original Earth Day manifesto read in part, “Earth Day is a commitment to make life better, not just bigger and faster, to provide real rather than rhetorical solutions. … It is a day to re-examine the ethic of individual progress at mankind’s expense—a day to challenge the corporate and governmental leaders who promise change, but who shortchange the necessary programs. … April 22 seeks a future worth living.”
The anti-corporate character of the initial Earth Day is long gone. This year PepsiCo and Keep America Beautiful—whose president and chief executive is a former PepsiCo senior vice president—have co-introduced a new bottle recycling kiosk. This sort of maneuver provides good publicity, while the real problems persist. Some 200 billion plastic beverage containers are produced in the United States each year—many of them filled with Pepsi products. A majority of these containers end up in landfills or contribute to trash along the roads and in oceans, on beaches and along rivers. Recycling the bottles is preferable to dumping them, but the result is negligible.
The real solutions to such environmental problems—such as eliminating the production of plastic bottles altogether—are not possible as long as key economic decisions remain in private hands.
Plastic bottles, for instance, may be unnecessary and replaceable, but they will continue to be produced so long as they remain profitable and fit into Pepsi’s business plan.
On the same note, many companies will simply factor in environmental fines into their costs-of-production. As long as they can continue making the desire profit, it is worth the cost. Of course, the capitalist owners rarely experience the immediate effects of their own disregard. That burden falls most heavily on the working class and oppressed communities around the world.
The movement launched in 1970 has led to significant changes. The political movement initiated by Earth Day led to the passage of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. Since 1970, smog levels have dropped 25 percent, while lead levels in the air are down by 90 percent. Many lakes and rivers that were seriously polluted have been cleaned up and are now safe for swimming.
These changes, however, are constantly under threat of being reversed. Also, corporate and military practices continue to be highly dangerous to the environment. Smog and water pollution still pose a threat to public health, in the United States and around the world. For instance, in Los Angeles, there are 6,000 premature births a year due to tiny particles in the air that cause lung and heart problems.
Many of the environmental problems we face today are not as visible as a river that actually caught fire due to pollution, as did the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio. Global climate change, caused by fossil fuel pollution, is already causing untold suffering from severe weather. Since 1970, carbon dioxide levels in the air have increased 19 percent and the world temperature has increased by about one degree Fahrenheit, according the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The environmentalist movement has produced some important advances. But this battle will always be an uphill one until there is systemic change. In our current system, private profit trumps any other consideration. Under socialism, the productive capabilities of society are organized and planned to meet the needs of the population, and create a sustainable long-term economy. What we need today is a renewal of the spirit of anti-capitalist environmentalism; we can’t save the planet, if we don’t take on the system that is attacking it.
