Earth Day turns 35

Switching off a light in the next room or tossing a used soda
can in the recycle bin is much more routine than it was 35 years
ago; a time when there were grassroots recycle campaigns,
nonexistent clean air acts and warnings of the Great Lakes being
polluted by oil refineries, paper mills and city sewage plants.

On April 22, 1970, with the creation of the first Earth Day,
people made an effort to attend to the Earth’s problems in an
attempt to reverse the dissipation of its natural resources. The
same year, the Environmental Protection Agency was formed to issue
and monitor environmental laws. Earth Day, which started in San
Francisco among an all-age crowd of citizens, has spread to
hundreds of nations worldwide.

UCLA students and faculty took active roles in the Earth Day
events Thursday on campus which aimed to address the main issues
affecting the environment today: energy conservation, water
pollution and the damages of greenhouse gases on the
atmosphere.

“It gives us a day not only to celebrate that we have the
Earth but it also gives environmental groups a chance to make a lot
of noise about a lot of problems,” said Aliya Haq, campus
organizer for the UCLA California Public Interest Research Group
chapter. “Individuals can take action themselves in
protecting the health of the planet.”

“The U.S. consumes 25 percent of the Earth’s
resources and makes up 4 percent of the population,” said
Steven Strong, founder of Solar Design Associates, who visited UCLA
on Thursday on an invitation by CALPIRG to speak about potential
energy solutions in California. Solar Design Associates is a design
firm specializing in the use of solar power in buildings.

CALPIRG is working to help pass a bill to install solar panels
in half of all new homes built. These panels would serve as a
cost-effective energy source for homes in that the energy could be
routed to all home appliances and circuits.

“Especially in California we have some of the worst air
pollution problems in the country. Solar power would reduce our
dependence on fossil fuels which will run out soon,” said
Haq.

Strong explained the futility of continuing to search for more
oil fields.

“It is like looking for an elephant in your house,”
he said. “There are no more oil fields in Saudi Arabia to
find. We’ve drilled Swiss cheese through all of
them.”

In addition to fossil fuels, John Rosenfeld, professor emeritus
in the department of geology, cited the large population as a
source of many issues.

“The overriding problem is a social problem and that is
population. We have a problem with people struggling and competing
with one another for ever-diminishing resources,” Rosenfeld
said.

In addition, the extinction of a variety of species impacts the
Earth in a far-reaching manner, he said.

“There are all sorts of unforeseen consequences when we
ignore the interdependence of species,” Rosenfeld said.

The release of mercury into drinking water sources in the east,
mainly due to the burning of soft coal, is a danger both to humans
and to fish life in the area, Rosenfeld said.

“We have to start learning to live on the Earth with a
much smaller footprint than we’re putting on it right
now,” he added

Student groups say that much of the hindrance in improving the
environment lies in the lack of voice demanding more stringent
protection policies from politicians.

“We need to get some new people into office who care about
this,” Rosenfeld said. Strong said there are two clear paths
ahead for the future of environmental issues.

“I believe there is a fork in the road ahead; we can
embrace resource conservation and environmental preservation or we
can continue to accelerate resource depletion which will lead to
strife, war and at the limit-extinction,” Strong said.

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