Who Was Listening at Earth Day?

Earth Day was never a true grassroots event. It has always been a media spectacle since its inauguration in April of 1970. In New York, Mayor John Lindsay shut down Fifth Avenue and made Central Park available for speakers and a million spectators. All the major networks covered the event that recognized the impending Clean Water and Clean Air Acts that Congress was about to pass. Soon, Philadelphia followed with a weeklong celebration from April 16-22. Earth Day has since expanded to 175 countries, reaching at least 20 million Americans, and countless citizens of other countries. While these numbers are staggering, Earth Day has always been a lagging factor as opposed to a leading one. It speaks to the converted rather than those on the fence. Earth Day celebrates past legislative achievement, rather than launches future legislative success.

At the Earth Day - ahem, "Climate Change,"-- rally in Washington DC on Sunday, April 25th, it was business as usual. As usual, the young progressives masked their pot smoking amidst the crowd while those of us not smoking wished we were. As usual, policemen walked around looking for easy targets to frisk for drugs. As usual, people were seldom listening to the speakers, only listening to the bands. At 4 o'clock a speaker asked the audience to text "Earth" to a number to donate $10 for the Climate Action Network. A video flashed that said "4 donations, 9960 dollars to go." Two hours later, the screen hadn't changed.

On the one hand, it's good for these events to rally the base. On the other hand, in today's world of personalized emails and streaming video, the best way to motivate anyone to do anything may no longer be the impersonal, arena-like event.

But Earth Day was arguably never about making anyone do anything anyway. Earth Day is about putting on a show and welcoming the spring in, and, by that measure, the Earth Day Rally was a success. Arriving at around 3:00 pm, I met up with my friends right as Passion Pit came on. A sea of white arms bopped to their fast rhythms. Later, the Roots gave an energetic performance that wasn't even quenched by the sound going out three times. My personal favorite was an ensemble performance consisting of The Roots, Booker T, and vocal solos by Joss Stone, and Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump. Stump was especially a pleasant surprise as he belted out gospel-like tunes as opposed to the usual pop-punk.

In between sets, the Reverend Jesse Jackson came out for a brief call and response session on saving the earth. He used grandiose terms like "Take back this earth." A woman newscaster took the stage with her basket of backyard grown vegetables and flung them out to the audience while encouraging us to do our laundry in cold water. An female Iraq veteran told us that we must be free of foreign energy without explicitly stating the connection between the high cost of fuel and national security. Most of these speakers echoed the arguments we've all heard for why we should care about the environment. Only, the speakers were more vague than most news articles. But it didn't matter because we were there mostly to see celebrities, and they were there mostly to be seen as Earth Day supporters.

Ironically, one of the biggest speakers turned out to be one of the most refreshing. James Cameron admitted that things like recycling, taking shorter showers, and using eco-friendly toilet paper won't solve our problems. Instead, he implored education, and asked each member of the audience to personally educate ten of their friends about global warming and its larger implications. A good lesson, if only people were listening.