The Environmental Revolution at Twenty-Five
![handle is hein.journals/rutlj26 and id is 481 raw text is: ESSAY
THE ENVIRONMENTAL REVOLUTION AT
TWENTY-FIVE
Jerry L. Anderson*
I. INTRODUCTION
On April 22, 1970, America celebrated the first Earth Day.1 One
hundred thousand people walked down New York City's Fifth Avenue
to demonstrate their concern for the planet.2 At 1500 college campuses
and 10,000 schools, many thousands more participated in teach-ins and
other ecological happenings.3 Politicians rode bicycles.4 Demonstrators
protested water pollution by displaying dead fish pulled from polluted
rivers5 and protested air pollution by smashing automobiles with
sledgehammers.6 From Clarksburg, West Virginia, where some
protesters dumped garbage on the courthouse steps, to San Francisco,
California, where others dumped oil into the reflecting pool at the
offices of Standard Oil, the nation displayed its dismay at the state of the
environment.7
Nevertheless, the mood at the dawning of Earth Day was largely
joyful, light-hearted, and optimistic. The New York Times described the
event as an ecological carnival, an exuberant rite of spring,
resembling a secular revival meeting.8 Clearly, the demonstrators
expected that something could and would be done to solve the
environmental problems they enthusiastically brought to the
government's attention.
* Associate Professor of Law, Drake University Law School. J.D., Stanford Law
School; B.S., University of Kansas. I thank Molly Amman, Sarah Frink, and Daryn
McBeth for their research assistance and the Drake Endowment Trust for supporting this
work. I also thank Susan Anderson, Thomas Davis, Eric Freyfogle, Chris Guthrie, and
John-Mark Stensvaag for their beneficial comments. C 1995 by Jerry L. Anderson.
1. Gladwin Hill, Activity Ranges From Oratory to Legislation, N.Y. TiMs, Apr. 23,
1970, at 1.
2. AMemento Mori to the Earth, TIME, May 4, 1970, at 16 [hereinafter Momento
Mon].
3. Momento Mori, supra note 2.
4. Joseph Lelyveld, Mood is Joyful as City Gives Its Support, N.Y. TIMES, Apr. 23,
1970, at 1, 30.
5. Id. at 30.
6. Momento Mori, supra note 2.
7. Hill, supra note 1.
8. Lelyveld, supra note 4, at 30.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/rutlj26&div=25&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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