Nelson, Gaylord. Speeches and other documents on Earth Day, 1970

              Environmental
Actian: Apr it 22
Vol. 1, No. 1
January 31, 1970
DuhoSf at stormy NY. meetings says kids to ^get bored^
A meeting of environmental groups in New York City over the week-end pro¬ duced a stormy debate over tactics.
Speakers who called for more research and who said that every individual is to blame for wasting the nation's resources were shouted down by young people de¬ manding action against industrial pol¬ luters.
"Your white racist institution is in the middle of the ghetto and it's not doing a damn thing," Frank Rosenthal of Colum¬ bia's Ecology Action called to a medi¬ cal researcher who was reciting statistics on lead poisoning among ghetto chil¬ dren.
Another speaker, Dr. Rene Dubos of Rockefeller University, ran into trouble when he said that individuals must adopt a new ethic. He was interrupted by a member of the audience who read a fact sheet on industrial pollution, while others yelled at Dubos, "Who's at fault?"
"You kids who are going to have the teach-ins are going to go out and do a few activities," snapped Dubos, "but then you're going to get bored with it and be¬ come the vice-presidents of the banks of tomorrow."
About 400 people attended the meet¬ ing in Barnard College's Lehman Hall.
JSumbers
With more than 11 weeks to go until April 22, organizing groups have so far been formed on 350 campuses and in 300 high schools. In addition, hundreds of citizens' groups —some national, most of them local —have said they plan to participate.
8000 jam 1st teach-in, cheer critics of Gov't
Thousands of people overflowed a Northwestern University auditorium for the nation's first major environmental teach-in January 23. Most of the speak¬ ers criticized President Nixon's message to Congress the day before and called for expenditures dwarfing the $10 billion water pollution program he proposed,
Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich termed the Nixon sum "hilarious." He said that the U.S. would have to spend $50-$60
Interruption
Northwestern's "Teach-Ouf' was jolted when 25 Indians, including two chiefs in full dress, took over the podium. They demanded that the University "stop aid¬ ing financially companies which have been polluting us to death and begin assisting Indian survival against the forces of pollution."
The group asked Northwestern to con¬ front the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which it charged has "polluted our air, lands, religion, and minds."
billion annually to bring all forms of pollution under control.
Addressing the audience as "fellow survivors," Dr. Barry Commoner, direc¬ tor of the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems at Washington Univer¬ sity, said that a "very careful estimate" by the Interior Department indicated that the fight against pollution will re¬ quire at least 10 times what the Presi¬ dent called for. Lt. Governor Paul Simon said it would take $10 billion to eliminate pollution in Illinois alone.
State treasurer Adlai Stevenson 3d, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Sen¬ ate, received a standing ovation for his blistering attack on the Nixon adminis¬ tration. "We have the capacity to make life liveable for all of us," he said. "The major question is do we have the leader¬ ship. We were promised change, but where is it?"
"The administration opposed a $600- million expansion of the federal water
pollution control program . . . while it asked for a multi-billion dollar expan¬ sion of an unnecessary, unworkable ABM system," said Stevenson. The U.S. spends more money on the war in Vietnam in two weeks, he said, "than it has spent on air pollution control in the last ten years,"
Illinois Attorney General William Scott, a Republican, called for more law suits against industrial polluters, "We're going to win this battle with pollution," he said, "when we convince the polluters that it is uneconomical to pollute,"
Estimates of the crowd ranged as high as 8-10,000. About 1,000 people viewed "teach-out"—as the event was dubbed by its organizers—over closed-circuit television in four nearby lecture rooms.
The nine-speaker program lasted four and a half hours. Afterwards, the audience broke up into 19 discussion groups which met until dawn.
The "teach-out" was sponsored by Northwestern Students for a Better En¬ vironment.
To Our Readers
This newsletter will be published periodically until April 22. We will try to let you know what environ¬ mental groups are doing around the country, and to provide information that may aid you in organizing for your area.
To do so, we need your help. Please tell us the environmental prob¬ lems and programs in your commu¬ nity, and the kinds of articles that you will find useful.
We hope this newsletter will be of service to the hundreds of new en¬ vironmental groups that are spring¬ ing up. With your guidance, it can be.