Earth Day – the real goals

Earth Day approaches once again – this Friday in fact. On this fifty-third Earth Day, we should reflect on the goals – ostensible and real – of the environmental movement.

When and how did Earth Day begin?

The first Earth Day took place on April 22, 1970. Most people alive today cannot appreciate the real pollution concerns that existed then. Factories belched smoke, and their owners spared barely a thought for that smoke as unpleasant at best, poisonous at worst. Other factories dumped toxic sludge into rivers. Some of us remember the Public Service Announcement campaigns of the period, including:

• The Native American paddling down a polluted river, then walking beside a highway. An uncaring car passenger throws litter literally at his feet, and he looks up, shedding a tear. Or how about:
• The boy hiking beside a river – and past industries dumping sludge and noxious brews into it.

To this day, Earth Day has its own advocacy group, which keeps the official history of the event. That history mentions certain things ordinary people did without the slightest thought. Like using gasoline containing tetraethyllead, and driving cars that consumed a prodigious amount of fuel per mile.

About Ira Einhorn

One name this organization does not mention, is that of Ira Einhorn – the Unicorn Killer. That’s because he likely “conned” others into believing he was the founder of the movement. He even stood on a stage, proclaiming himself to be the founder, so that someone took his picture. But before the decade was out, he killed someone. A jury would, decades later, find him guilty of killing his girlfriend and trying to turn her into compost. Apparently a landlord broke into his apartment to clear the bad smell, and found the body. Ira Einhorn went to prison for that act in 2002, and died shortly before Earth Day 2019. Which goes to show that “murder will out.”

A made-for-TV movie chronicled Ira Einhorn, his “unicorn” moniker, and how he misrepresented himself as the chief organizer of the first Earth Day. At least the official keepers of the history say that, and CNAV has no good reason to believe they’re lying.

How easy it is to take people in

But Ira Einhorn’s case illustrates one other thing: how easy it is to con the legacy media with a message they want to hear. Time Magazine admits that Ira Einhorn fooled them and many others into believing he planned the Philadelphia Earth Day event. According to one witness:

He was not even a member of the committee of 33 men and women who did [organize the event]. The photo you ran was taken during a one-hour period when Einhorn literally occupied the podium, refusing to get off the stage and delaying Senator Edmund Muskie’s keynote speech. It was an unsuccessful attempt — at least at that time — to seize 15 minutes of fame. Now a notorious murder, flight, trial in absentia and foreign capture are giving Einhorn the national media attention he so desperately craved.

It also gave Earth Day bad publicity, which it probably didn’t deserve – on this account. The real significance of Earth Day is as a reflection of the environmental movement as a whole.

What do Earth Day celebrants really want?

The Columbus Dispatch describes activities people are arranging in Columbus, Ohio for Earth Day. They include cleaning up piles of trash and planting seeds. Reforestation is a legitimate activity, and can do some good, by improving the planet’s capacity to make oxygen.

One thing we hear about from the Earth Day organizers is regenerative agriculture. They want to avoid the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and what not. Much of these are the very things the Russians now refuse to sell to the rest of the world. Joseph R. Mercola, D.O., is already urging farmers to “go regenerative” if they expect to make a crop this year.

But then they talk about telling people to turn vegetarian – and even Mercola doubts the wisdom of that. The only concentrated sources of protein are meat and fish. Vegetarians, and especially “vegans,” the strictest of the lot, are vulnerable to physical weakness and certain anemias.

Worse than that is the deliberate energy squeeze. Earth Day has turned into an excuse to depopulate the planet, and to deindustrialize and even de-civilize. Michael Moore, in Planet of the Humans (2020), correctly points out what’s wrong with many environmental “solutions.” But then he basically tells people to kill themselves to save the planet. New York City will ban cars from over a hundred streets on Earth Day. Elon Musk, last month, urged Europe to expand nuclear power.

But the common Earth Day message is: no nukes!

Conclusion

The original organizers of Earth Day expressed many legitimate concerns that day, and our civilization has dealt with them. Naturally such organizers don’t want to quit, so they invent other concerns. Today those organizers recommend many sound things – but recommend other, unsound things. In deciding when one must move on from any activist, ask yourself what are his true goals. The Earth Day keepers have created this problem for themselves: worshiping the creation instead of the Creator. And also seeing their fellow human beings as a blight on the planet. Bear this in mind, as you examine – critically – what they recommend.