Today we celebrate the 39th anniversary of Earth Day. On April 22, 1970 more Americans (over 20 million) came out in public support for this cause than had ever done before in support of the environment. President Nixon, against his personal and party political convictions, but under immense public pressure, approved the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (Click Here to view a video message from the new EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson). This was also the year that domestic oil production peaked in the United States. 3 years later, we were in the grips of OPEC and Americans were to become increasingly concerned about things like pollution & global warming, over-population, world hunger and poverty. At least for a few years until we forgot...

The EPA went on to pass several environmental laws & regulations over the next few years, and by the late seventies many of us were beginning to believe that we had won back control of our planet from the Corporations who mindlessly created these calamities. But then, we got foolish and elected a failed Hollywood Cowboy actor to the White House. The same man, who as president, pushed us solidly in the economic direction that is giving us fits now. President Reagan began by dismantling the Solar Energy collectors on the roof of the White House that President Jimmy Carter had installed. Then he went about relaxing corporate regulation on just about anything he could get his misguided hands on. Not only on the environment in general, but on the auto industry as well. So that by 1988, on average, automobiles in America were actually now getting less MPG than they were 10 years earlier after the EPA began regulating automobile mileage standards through it's pollution control regulatory mechanisms. Consequently, mileage did not substantially improve for another 10 years. Only now, when it seems so Deja-Vu-like, we are once again opening our eyes to the even greater damage the insatiable corporate lust for profit has brought to our Earth. And also like a nightmare returned, we are now at or very close to global peak-oil production. At least half of the world's population is too young to remember the gas lines of the early-mid seventies, and the fear that gripped us from feeling impotent against the huge forces of nature that appeared to be going out of control.

Of course the ultimate blame goes squarely on us, the citizenry, for not only believing the rhetoric that our corporate-lobbied politicians tell us, but for becoming so incensed with measuring our freedom by the yardsticks of consumerism and materialism. Ripping our planet and it's peoples apart through selfish imperial military domination over the world's dwindling resources, displacing whole populations and causing a chain reaction of ecological consequences we cannot even accurately predict or imagine. Well, we better wake up!

Last night on Frontline, they aired what could very well be the most important and thought-provoking program they have aired on the state of our environment since they aired the segment "HEAT" last year. It's entitled: "Poisoned Waters". It looks at the state of our global water supply from the perspective of the current condition of the Chesapeake Bay, over 25 years after the passage of the Clean Water Act.

You can view it by clicking here:

This is a must-see for anyone who is concerned about the future of our freshwater supplies and the health of our planet. A state of health that will determine our own future survival...

Follow up:

How Many Lightbulbs?

I found the following on the Guardian today. It's amusing, but sobering as well. And although I do not agree with the expansion of coal and nuclear energy as solutions without implication, I do think that no solution is possible if we cannot openly discuss these problems with the emphasis on human-life needs rather than looking at everything from a profit angle.

Here's an excerpt and below it a video from the article.

Cambridge University has launched this impressive video to coincide with Earth Day. It is part "how to" guide to reducing your energy consumption around the home and part sober warning of the scale of action required to combat the climate crisis.

Physicist David MacKay expresses his frustration at the hopelessly small-scale measures - such as cutting down on plastic bags or unplugging your phone charger - that some promote as solutions to the climate crisis. "The idea that these are the number one things we should be talking about when we are addressing the energy problem - it drove me crazy," he said. "This is twaddle and it is distracting us from talking about serious change that would actually make a difference."

Today in honor of Earth Day, I am posting relative material on all 3 of my blogs.

Click here for the JellyFish - See a YouTube video by one of our current generation's concerned. It gives a brief history of this annual event. In addition view an Earth Day message from the current EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, and visit the multimedia web site Earth Day Television.

Click here for my Road Maps blog where you can sign onto a letter supporting President Obamas's global climate initiative.