What Comes After Earth Day?
This special episode on Earth Fest was created and recorded in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin–Madison Office of Sustainability and the SustainUW podcast team. Special thanks to Brynne Hill, Tim Lindstrom, and former Edge Effects Managing Editor Nathan Jandl for their work in making this episode possible. Be sure to check out SustainUW’s podcast for more fantastic environmental content!
Earth Day happens every year on April 22. But what happens after that day, when environmental degradation, climate change, and species loss still loom large as some of the greatest threats in our time?
In April of this year, during UW-Madison’s annual Earth Fest—planned by the Nelson Institute for Environmental Study and the Office of Sustainability—I and the other SustainUW podcast interns sought community perspectives on Earth Day and the week-long events on campus. First, I sat with Professor Jim Feldman to discuss Earth Day’s history in the United States and its important connection to Wisconsin. Then, we interviewed students, staff, and community experts on how Earth Day is celebrated on campus today, and their ongoing, diverse efforts to pursue its mission every day.
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Interview Highlights
This interview has been edited for length and clarity, and is only a small portion of the discussion. We encourage listening to the entire episode wherever you get your podcasts.
Jim Feldman: Earth Day 1970 is considered when it became this massive nationwide issue, but it had been building for a while before that. One often-used jumping-off point is when Rachel Carson published her book Silent Spring in 1962, which was about the misuse of pesticides in agriculture. It was on the bestseller list for thirty weeks. The chemical industries tried to suppress its publication.
But even before that, people had become concerned about fallout from nuclear testing, which had been happening both in Nevada and also in the Pacific Proving Grounds. The recognition that there was fallout—that there were radioactive isotopes that were sneaking their way through the food system, into human bodies and affecting human health—really unsettled people. When Rachel Carson came along a few years later, they were scared about the impact that modern industrial society was having on human health. When people mobilized, there had been this growing concern about environmental issues, and it unleashed Earth Day.
Brynne Hill: Who was Gaylord Nelson, and how did he contribute to Earth Day?
JF: Gaylord Nelson was the senator from Wisconsin, and he had been the governor of Wisconsin. He made his career by putting the environment at the middle of what it meant to be a Wisconsinite. He saw the impacts of the Santa Barbara oil spill, and it inspired the decision to create a national teach-in to raise awareness about environmental concerns. The teach-in was a form of demonstration that was borrowed directly from anti-war protests. The lead organizer hired others to help with community groups, school groups, and university campuses to bring this nationwide movement together on Earth Day—although some scholars have said it maybe should be called “Earth Spring” because there were other activities.
BH: So Earth Day was absolutely strategic. How many people participated in Earth Day 1970?
JF: The estimate is that twenty million people participated in protests on Earth Day 1970, which made it the largest protest of its kind in American history. That’s about 10 percent of the population of the United States at the time. So that means that over the course of that day, one in ten of the people who lived in the United States were participating in Earth Day activity.
BH: What impact did Earth Day have on the US?
JF: One of the things that made Earth Day so powerful and so broadly supported is that everyone could feel like they had a stake in the issue. Everyone could feel like pollution was something that affected them, and people did recognize that pollution affected some groups differently. A lot of the pollution was disproportionately in lower income neighborhoods, for example. But what the activism around Earth Day allowed was for people who cared about so many different issues to come together to argue for this one thing, and it was a rare moment of unity.
BH: In that regard, how does Earth Day play a role in the country today?
JF: There are a lot of ways you can think about the legacy of Earth Day. On the one hand, you could say we have been having Earth Days for a very long time now, and we are still struggling with basic environmental problems, and we haven’t done anything. You could also look at it and say that Earth Day isn’t enough, that to say that one day of year to celebrate and recognize and fight for the Earth isn’t going to get us where we need to go. And those things might be true.
It’s also true that in the immediate moment, Earth Day captured this incredible social momentum, and very quickly thereafter, a whole series of environmental acts were passed: the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. With that momentum generated by Earth Day, the United States put together a powerful system of environmental protection. We still have lots of work to do, and we need events like Earth Day to remind us that we have that work to do.
BH: This is a bit of a fun fact question I was hoping you could answer why April 22?
JF: When they were putting together Earth Day, one of the things that made it so powerful was that it did bring people together from all over the place. There were radical activists involved in planning for Earth Day, there were middle class housewives involved in planning for Earth Day, there were big politicians like Gaylord Nelson.
When people mobilized, there had been this growing concern about environmental issues, and it unleashed Earth Day.
They had help from Madison Avenue and some of the biggest advertising companies in the country, and they didn’t have a good name. The advertiser who they worked with had a bunch of different ideas, like “Ecology Day” or “E Day.” He liked “Earth Day” because it rhymed with “birthday,” and he thought that would be catchy. His birthday was April 22. I don’t believe that’s why the date was chosen, but that’s part of the story of how Earth Day got its name.
BH: Any last words for our listeners?
JF: Every day is Earth Day. That’s hard to remember; that’s easy to forget. It’s important to be intentional and remind ourselves. Earth Day still has the ability to bring people together, to focus on an issue that effects us all, but we have to keep in mind that it affects us all differently. Our environmental understanding is shaped by things like class and race, but it’s also true that the environment has a chance to bring us together.
Featured image: Attendees look at information booths at the Earth Fest Kickoff Celebration and discussion panel held in the Discovery Building at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Photo by Bryce Richter, 2024.
Jim Feldman is a professor of Environmental Studies & History at the UW-Oshkosh, and the director of the Environmental Studies Program, and a visiting professor of History at UW-Madison. His research and teaching interests include American and global environmental history, wilderness, radioactive waste, and sustainability. Outside of all that, he does a lot of parenting, cooking, walking, canoeing, and rooting for Chicago sports teams. Contact.
Brynne Hill graduated this spring from UW-Madison with Bachelor’s degrees in Environmental Studies and Spanish and a certificate in 2D Art. She was an intern with the Office of Sustainability for two years, where she contributed to a campus culture of sustainability as a member of the podcast, Green Office, Green Events, and Communications teams. Environmental education, community engagement, and policy are the fundamentals of her work. Contact.
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