One U.S. senator and a core of young organizers turned April 22, 1970, into the day the environmental movement was born.
On that day, 20 million Americans in 2,000 communities and 10,000 schools planted trees, cleaned up parks, buried cars in mock graves, marched, listened to speeches and protested how humans were messing up their world.
....Earth Day was the brainchild of Sen. Gaylord Nelson, a Wisconsin Democrat, who came up with the idea of a national teach-in on the environment after 3 million gallons of oil spilled across the beaches of Santa Barbara, Calif., and killed 10,000 seabirds in January 1969.
Nelson's idea gave birth to a green movement and a "green generation" that would be as powerful as the industrial revolution in shaping the future of civilization. - Cleveland.com
Celebrate Senator Nelson's idea today...and everyday.
Sea Otter preening itself in Morro Bay, CA sea-otter-morro-bay_13
Originally uploaded by mikebaird.There are some folks in town who want to rid the Santa Barbara area of Sea Otters. I think that is a foolish and knee jerk reaction to a "perceived" problem. I think that looking at the "big picture" should be the plan...and so does Das.....Current Santa Barbara City Councilman Das Williams said it best… “I say we should embrace the economic and environmental opportunities presented by the otter’s return. They will eat a lot of urchins, and that will impact that fishery, but urchins have decimated kelp forests and the otter’s return may increase the size of kelp forests which also increase the number of other fish species that people once fished in decent numbers. The economic benefit of otters on a town like Monterrey is also very significant financially. Besides, their impact to the urchin fishery may not be devastating in the near term because it is largely males heading south during the female’s season to raise pups, an adaptation to prevent the males competing with the pups for food, so it is for now seasonal trips into our waters.” - Santa Barbara View
