If you don't remember the first Earth Day 56 years ago, it's probably because Nixon had the US Army invade Cambodia a week later, and the Kent State killings came not long after that.

By May 5th, we were on strike.

Strong memories seem to overwhelm the less exciting ones, and compared to May 5-10th on campus, Earth Day was a forgettable spring interlude.

Still, the April 22 events, a combined teach-in, lecture, discussion, and film screening blitz, are worth remembering for what they show about the history of environmentalism in America.

Here's (thanks to the generosity of David Masselli, D'70) the front page of The D that day.

Since the newspaper scan is not perfect, here is an expanded image of the schedule of events:

Did you remember that the Dartmouth Outing Club was the principal organizer? I didn't.

The talk by Johnathan Brownell, a Vermont lawyer involved in environmental issues, is a downer. We've all heard lines like “How many of you are willing to renounce many of our material goods or are able to pay a substantially higher price for what we now feel are necessities, in order to meet the costs of environmental protection?" The emphasis on sacrifice and the sermonizing about a more ascetic lifestyle were probably not great motivators for doing anything about ecological problems, and we've been hearing this speech continuously for the past 50 years. Is it any wonder that environmentalism is not universally appealing? It's easy to be in favor of other people's sacrifices, though.

No wonder there was a band playing on The Hop's balcony to cheer up all the gloom and doom.

You might notice as well that there is nothing about rising CO2 levels and global warming, much less climate change. It would be almost 20 years before that issue was highlighted.

The 60s had learned from Rachel Carson. We'd watched the rise of industrial pollution and the accumulation of garbage in our rivers. A lot of the focus in the early days of American environmentalism was on an easily grasped notion of "clean up." There was a clear awareness of accumulating chemical poisons from industrial dumping, but besides the health issues, there was a powerful aesthetic component: pollution was ugly.

Do you remember Earth Day I at Dartmouth?