Denis Hayes on why the first Earth Day went viral, the U.S. solar industry that could have been if Reagan hadn’t stopped it, and what he hopes we learn from the pandemic
Not surprisingly, Hayes was an early advocate of renewable power. During the Carter administration, he was director of the Federal Solar Research Institute in Colorado — until it was gutted by President Ronald Reagan. Since 1992, Hayes has been president of the Bullitt Foundation in Seattle, which funds a wide range of environmental and climate-related organizations in the Pacific Northwest.
Also, in the 1960s, we had the anti-war movement, which, particularly after the 1968 Democratic Convention, was breaking down into ever more radical splinters. Then there was the civil-rights movement that led to the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, followed by the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, and the urban riots that followed that. There was this great tension in the country that was pulling things apart. There were the cultural battles of the 1960s.
Denis Hayes, the head of Environment Teach-In Inc., the organization that coordinated activities for Earth Day in 1970, in the group’s office in Washington, D.C.What role did corporations play then? With the climate fight, we’ve had very sophisticated engines of disinformation and lobbying — ExxonMobil, the frackers, the auto industry.
In the end, we defeated seven of the 12. The first one to go was a guy named George Fallon, who was the chairman of the House Public Works Committee. If you wanted a federal building, a prison, a courthouse, a road, a bridge, George Fallon had to sign off on it. When Fallon was defeated by his environmental record, that was the shot heard around the capital. It was just a staggering impact [felt] by members of Congress.
It’s easy to imagine what a different position we would be in with climate change if we had kept going on that track. We’d be in a very different place. You could go from where it was initially, maybe $70 a watt, to where it might be today if you’re buying things in really big scale — 20, 30 cents a watt. That’s just a stunning kind of breakthrough, comparable to what happened with regard to computer chips. The Chinese were smart enough to take advantage of that. That was a state decision. That’s a Green New Deal, that decision.
If we — and by we, I mean Homo Sapiens around the planet — address it effectively, if we manage to tamp down the curve so that it becomes something where maybe there’s a lot of death but not a 1918 flu level of death, then I’m not sure how it will pan out. It may be something that is here with incredible intensity now, but what people remember three years from now is that their 401s declined and they lost a lot of income for two, or three, or four months.
Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Today's the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day: What Is Earth Day and Why Do We Celebrate?Earth Day was celebrated for the first time 50 years ago. Here are some fun facts about the holiday.
Read more »
Sustainable Fashion We're Obsessed With for Earth Day (and Every Day)From bathing suits to jeans to super chic dresses, these brands are going the extra mile in their Earth-friendly practices.
Read more »
Looking for a Ladies’ Room With Margaret Mead: The Hearings That Launched the First Earth DayFifty years ago, at the dawn of the American environmental movement, Congress held a revelatory series of hearings featuring anthropologists and biologists but also an artist, a theologian, and a top sanitation worker. The author remembers the prescient testimony, and the bygone spirit of collegiality.
Read more »
Opinion: Between 'Blade Runner' and utopia: Where we're headed 50 years after the first Earth DayFifty years on from the first EarthDay, jdsutter writes that 'for all of the discussion, things have gotten far worse.'
Read more »