Happy Earth Day! The first Earth Day was 54 years ago, April 22 1970. A [...]

Happy Earth Day! The first Earth Day was 54 years ago, April 22 1970. A group calling itself Environmental Vigilantes celebrated by dumping crankcase oil in the reflecting pool of Standard Oil’s San Francisco offices, in protest of a recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

For the most part, however, radicals steered clear of early Earth Day events, which they saw as a “government shuck”. The holiday was created by Wisconsin senator Gaylord Nelson, who hoped to harness (and divert) the energy of the youth anti-war movement

The view of the Bay Area left was summed up by an article in the Berkeley Tribe which stated: “The environmental crisis has its roots in the same cancerous growth as the other social sicknesses, Vietnam, racism, poverty – that is the distribution of wealth in this country”

Earth Day events were geared towards university students, but few attended. The government-sponsored teach-ins failed to capture the imagination of politically-engaged students who had been fighting police on campus at an anti-war riot the previous week

In the lead-up to the inaugural Earth Day, the Tribe published an article by communist yoga group People’s Opiate Church, which reflected the consensus of the local left: “Take ecology into the streets along with, not instead of, the other issues”