Earthrise, taken on December 24, 1968, by Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders. NASA/Anders.

Wednesday, April 22^nd, 1970, was a cloudy day in New York City, with a high of 64 degrees Fahrenheit. On that day in South Africa, the Nationalist Party led by B. J. Vorster had just trounced the far-right Verkrampte Herstigte Nasionale Party– the HNP – in a general election. In the Caribbean, mutinous Trinidadian soldiers who supported the Black Power movement were confining their compatriots to their barracks.

And, in New York City, and across the USA, it was also the first Earth Day.

There was no mention of this on the front page of the LondonTimes, but twenty million Americans protested on streets and campuses from Sacramento to Saugerties about environmental reform. In favour of environmental controls, that is.

Twenty million people equalled 10 percent of the US population at the time.

Actions by the 10 percent were mainly calm and mild. Students and people of all ages collaborated in community clean-ups, marched and sang. And, compared to anti-war protests, such as the shootings at Kent State University a mere two weeks into the future, the establishment’s reactions were positively milquetoast. Wrote Nan Robertson, a New York Times reporter, “like Mother’s Day, no man in public office could be against it.”

Ah, yes. That was then. Hopefully no woman in public office would be against it either, now. But, hang on – this is now. And it seems Republican elected officials, male and female, approve of President Trump’s wholesale shredding of environmental protections in the US.

Back in London, fifty years ago, The Times did dredge up a mention of Earth Day on page 10 of its 22^ndApril edition. The piece chose to focus on plans to stop the traffic to “celebrate the war against pollution”, as the reporter, Michael Leapman, put it. He also spent a couple of column lines on a central dilemma: the offending motor cars and disposable cartons, with their side effects of “hazards” and “horrors”, were also convenient and even happiness-inducing. From the vantage point of our 21^stcentury interconnecting crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and inequality, to which we can now add the coronavirus pandemic: if only he’d known how bad it would still get.

That also might have surprised peace activist and founder of the first Earth Day, John McConnell, who died in 2012 at the age of 97. Endlessly enterprising, McConnell organised the 1962 Meals for Millions campaign to feed Hong Kong refugees in San Francisco, the Minute for Peace campaign in 1963, and lobbied for a ‘Star of Hope’ satellite to foster peaceful cooperation in Space.

He was also troubled by environmental deterioration in general, and pollution from surging plastic production. In 1969 at a UNESCO conference in San Francisco, he advocated for a day to honour the Earth and peace, falling on the northern hemisphere spring equinox. McConnell saw Earth Day as a day in which people all over the world would consider how they could work together for peace, justice and the care of Earth.

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, a junior Democratic senator, Gaylord Nelson, had been galvanised by the calamitous Santa Barbara, California oil spill of January 1969. He employed 26-year-old Denis Hayes to coordinate a countrywide teach-in on 22^ndApril across the nation’s campuses, to hitch the spirit of the anti-war protests to the emerging environmental consciousness. Hayes saw the potential for this to attract a far wider audience, organised furiously, and Earth Day was born.

If you think there might be a missing link here, so do I. It appears that McConnell felt Gaylord Nelson took his Earth Day name without permission. And there is no mention of McConnell in the history of Earth Day put out by the organisers. This, I think, might be a story for another day.

McConnell went on to write the Earth Day proclamation that was signed by United Nations Secretary General U Thant in February 1971. Hayes is largely credited with setting up the Earth Day Network, which took the concept global and now partners with institutes in over 190 countries. Earth Day persists, grows, and is now, its organisers say, “the largest secular observance in the world.”

John McConnell in front of his home Denver Colorado, USA with his Earth Flag he designed – photographed by Charles Michael Murray.

Now 75, Hayes knows that tackling the climate crisis is a daunting task; as he says, we have been “notoriously unsuccessful” in effectively dealing with global challenges. Part of the way forward might lie in building wider coalitions with shared values – something the first Earth Day succeeded in doing.

Earth Day 2020 was to include the Great Global CleanUp, and a worldwide stealth art project, but thanks to Covid-19 all activities have been shifted to “digital mobilisations’, and some localised clean-ups where safe.

So here we sit, at our screens. Or, if we are lucky enough, on solitary walks in nature. One thing we can take from the pandemic is that public health is intrinsic to our topical triumvirate of climate change, biodiversity and inequality. Going further, it is no stretch to see how topical McConnell’s preoccupation with the trio of peace, justice and the care of Earth is. People are out of work and hungry, the World Food Programme has warned of a “biblical famine”, and we are not all in the same situation, no matter what the influencers may want us to think.

There was no pandemic terrorising the world on the first Earth Day in the northern spring of 1970. But on that day, 50 years ago, Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel was the number one hit in the British charts. We don’t know exactly what was on Paul Simon’s mind when he wrote the soothing lyrics. But Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King had been assassinated in 1968, racial tensions were flaring across the US, and the Vietnam war would drag bloodily on for another five years. Some solace was needed, and Simon wrote those moving words :

When you’re weary, feeling small
When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all, all
I’m on your side, oh, when times get rough
And friends just can’t be found
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down

Songwriter: Paul Simon © Universal Music Publishing Group

We have a lot of work to do still. But on this Earth Day, as we shelter in place, everybody needs a bridge over troubled water. Take some time out to re-read Paul Simon’s words again, and to take some solace from them. Even better, watch and listen to the magic he and Art Garfunkel weave out of that simple song at a concert in Central Park. Take a deep breath, and lay you down.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrcwRt6J32o&w=560&h=315]