Let Earth Day Show Us the Way
The Inside Story of the First and Biggest ‘Hands Off’ Protest Ever
Denis Hayes is the environmentalist who headed President Jimmy Carter’s groundbreaking Solar Energy Research Institute and the man who first got solar panels installed on the White House roof (at least until Ronald Reagan tore them off). But Hayes will forever be best known as the leader of the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970.
This week at a special showing of the Robert Stone documentary, “Earth Days,” in Santa Barbara, Hayes reflected on his lifetime as an environmental champion and the state of U.S. environmentalism in the age of Trump.
Here are six takeaways from an evening with Hayes:
The first Earth Day started as a “teach-in.” It turned into the largest and arguably most effective day of protest in American history.
“We had virtually no money. We had incredible aspirations, but there was no World Wide Web. There was no Internet, there were no blogs, there was no email, there was no instant messaging. There was none of the kind of web activism that is possible today. So we sent newsletters to people across the country. They were all printed for us for free by the United Auto Workers. The United Auto Workers were the largest single contributors to Earth's Day.
“What we were trying to do was to create a brand new public consciousness that would cause the rules of the game to change. It worked. Earth Day was the largest demonstration ever in American history. Some events had half a million people in them and we had an estimated 20 million across the country. (President Richard) Nixon was looking at the television and seeing these large crowds across the country and seeing the largest crowd in New York City, where Fifth Avenue was blocked off with two-and-a-half miles crammed with people. Nixon wasn't much of an environmentalist, but he was a pretty astute politician.
“That is how on Earth Day, the President decided to issue a presidential order to establish the Environmental Protection Agency.”
Before he was for Earth Day, Nixon was against it.
“The Earth Day offices were wiretapped by the FBI and, interestingly, also by military intelligence. My lord, what did they think we were doing?”
The next president, Jimmy Carter, and his head of solar energy, Denis Hayes, launched a program to make 20 percent of the U.S. electrical grid renewable by 2000. It would have worked, but….
“The energy market at that time was a combination of guaranteed monopolies, oil cartels and price subsidies favoring the largest, the most powerful, the most wealthy, and the most ruthless corporations in America. And they had just a stranglehold on Congress.
“So you have on one side hugely powerful interests defending their preeminence, and on the other hand, a bunch of solar entrepreneurs operating out of their garages with virtually nothing. It was like me going into the boxing ring with Muhammad Ali. It just was not a contest.”
While Earth Day crowds have dwindled in the U.S., the rest of the world tells us a more hopeful story.
“And so we did try to finally stop Earth Day from being a United States Environment Day to being truly an Earth Day— and we succeeded in having events in 144 countries. We are now in 185 countries and in an average year we have over a billion participants around the world. And most years we have more people participating in India than we do in the United States.”
The creator of Earth Day has a love-hate relationship with Tesla.
“I hate to say anything good about Elon Musk, but the Tesla Model 3 is by far the best car I've ever owned. And I turned it in, because I did not want to be driving around in a car that is like wearing a big red MAGA hat.
“The second best car that I've ever owned is the Kia Electric that I now have. Wasn't a huge sacrifice.”
We are facing dark days for U.S. environmentalism. Yet Hayes reminds us Americans still have the power and the numbers to make change.
“I’m absolutely a fan of resolute optimism, but… we’re facing four really bleak years. The neat thing is, as a planet, we're not doing that badly. Renewables are dominating energy growth in countries all over the world, rich countries and poor countries alike. But I'm afraid America, which incidentally invented and developed photovoltaic panels, is just being left in the dust.
“So buy the greenest car that you can buy and then your neighbors might ask about it. Or you could put a heat pump in your place instead of a furnace. Do things that radiate your values. It's not going to change the world, but it is going to change your neighborhood. And if your neighborhood changes, then next your community changes, and it’s keeps going up.
“We’ve got four bleak years facing us nationally. But we are not merely a nation, we are also a people. And that's where we can make real progress.”
The full house at the Santa Barbara Community Environmental Council’s Eco Hub responded to that message with sustained applause.
Denis Hayes, the 26-year-old activist who put Earth Day on our cultural map, is now an 80-year-old activist living in Santa Barbara, itself an environmentalism epicenter and catalyst for the first Earth Day. His host this week, the Community Environmental Council, has been key to Santa Barbara’s drive toward sustainability, including its innovative Climate Stewards education and training program, and the decision to become a 100-percent renewably powered city by the end of the decade. Hayes was joined on stage by council CEO Sigrid Wright, local Earth Day Festival leader Sharyn Main, and documentary filmmaker Scott Kipp.
The massive 1969 Santa Barbara coastal oil spill, then the worst in U.S. history, galvanized the nation with devastating images of pollution and destruction. The disaster helped fuel the mass protests of the First Earth day the following spring and the combination helped turn the 1970s into America’s Golden Age of environmentalism. Stone’s documentary is a reminder of a decade that saw adoption of the most powerful protections for clean air, clean water, and conservation of the natural world and endangered species ever adopted anywhere. Those landmark laws passed in Congress by nearly unanimous bipartisan majorities — and Republican President Nixon signed them.
Denis Hayes is an environmental hero, an inspiring figure to so many. When I was a kid, his example led me to join my school’s Recycling Club to do my part against waste and pollution. Now Earth Day can again show us the way forward. It was the original Hands Off Day — the sort of community action that is now our best and most effective way to protect what we value most.
I recommend you watch the film “Earth Days” during Earth month. Thursday night’s showing and community conversation with Hayes serves as a powerful reminder that healing our world is something that has brought all of us together, not divided us, in the past. And it can do so again. It can do so now.