Thousands observe Earth Day 2000 in Washington

April 22, 2000
Web posted at: 11:04 p.m. EDT (0304 GMT)

In this story: Clinton criticizes Republicans on global warming Exhibits highlight nonpolluting energy sources TreePeople founder looks back 1970: A grassroots explosion 'Hitting the Earth twice as hard' Just another green holiday? Montreal, Rio and Kyoto Battle of Seattle and beyond RELATED STORIES, SITES

From staff and wire reports

WASHINGTON -- Thousands of visitors, together with politicians, celebrities and activists, flocked to the National Mall on Saturday to celebrate Earth Day 2000 in a rock-concert atmosphere that marked the 30th anniversary of an event now observed at scores of places around the planet.

Chairman of the U.S. capital's celebrations was actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who said environmental issues had always sparked his interest since childhood.

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He, Vice President Gore and a long list of other politicians, environmentalists and celebrities were applauded when they called for stepped-up efforts to protect the air, water and land.

"Enough is enough," DiCaprio said. "The truth is our planet's alarm is now going off and it's time to wake up and take action."

Gore unveiled policy initiatives aimed at halting the flow of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. He proposed tougher requirements for power plants to reduce air pollution, while granting industry the flexibility to meet the new goals.

He called for approaches such as emissions trading, which allows coal-burning plants to buy credits from cleaner-burning plants until the dirtier ones can meet tougher pollution standards.

"We have to stand against apologists for pollution -- those who believe in the old politics of environmental irresponsibility," he said.

President Clinton, speaking on radio, said the Republican Congress has failed to recognize what he called the global warming threat and failed to act on legislation promoting clean and efficient energy.

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Chris Paulitz, the Republican National Committee spokesman, called Clinton's proposals "small ideas to help the environment." He criticized Gore's 1992 book "Earth in the Balance," which he said highlighted Gore's "extremist ideas" on the environment.

The theme of Earth Day 2000 is "Clean Energy Now," with advocates saying pollutants must be curbed to reverse depletion of the ozone layer and combat global warming.

"We presently have the technology ... fuel cells, solar cells, hydrogen ... the opportunities are amazing for clean energy," said Denis Hayes, who helped put on the first Earth Day and now heads the Seattle-based Bullitt Foundation, which funds environmental projects in the Pacific Northwest.

Gaylord Nelson, the former U.S. senator from Wisconsin who is widely credited for starting Earth Day in 1970, said, "We've had 30 years of learning, experimenting, rehearsing for the future.

"If we don't (address environmental issue) we'll flounder around for another 30 years."

Clinton, in his weekly radio address, said, "If we value our coastlines, or farm lands and our vital biodiversity we must build a national consensus to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases."

He said he will shortly issue executive orders to require that federal agencies reduce by 20 percent over five years the amount of petroleum their cars, vans and trucks burn, and to subsidize all or some of the commuting costs of federal workers who use public transportation between home and work, by up to $65 a month.

Exhibit tents and the multimedia stage at the Mall were fitted out with several high and low technologies that use nonpolluting energy sources, including wind, solar, natural gas, biofuels and propane.

Power-generating propellers turned in the chilly breeze, and shiny government trucks presented a flashier image for electric- or natural gas-powered vehicles. Visitors walked across the Mall from the Capitol to the Washington Monument in a festival atmosphere, to the strains of music from David Crosby and others.

One of the environmental organizations formed in the wake of the first Earth Day was TreePeople, now one of the largest environmental education organizations in the U.S.

Its founder, Andy Lipkis, said the value of trees started out with the "really beautiful simplicity" of what one person, family, neighborhood could do when planting them.

"We tend to write them off," he said. "But if you remove asphalt, remove concrete, put a tree in the ground, take the green waste (grass trimmings), make a mulch and compost and put it into the ground, all of a sudden you're starting to solve a flooding issue, a water pollution issue, a waste issue, an air quality issue and even a global warming issue."

Back in 1969, industrial waste did more than fuel a fire on Cleveland's Cuyahoga River, which turned the northern Ohio industrial city into a target of national ridicule. It ignited the modern environmental movement that saw 20 million people taking to streets across the U.S. for the first Earth Day a year later.

Most environmentalists say the green movement is in better shape than it was 30 years ago. There are stronger laws and better technologies, and environmental awareness has increased. But some say such threats as overpopulation, species reduction, and global warming overshadow those gains.

For much of the 20th century, people accepted pollution as the inevitable price of progress. But in the '60s, U.S. environmental awareness picked up, spurred in part by the publication of Rachel Carson's 1962 book "Silent Spring," about the toll that the pesticide DDT took on bird populations.

The then Sen. Nelson, saying that few U.S. leaders were paying attention to public concern about the environment, announced a series of teach-ins across the country on April 22, 1970. Twenty million people participated.

"It was truly an astonishing grassroots explosion," Nelson said in a statement. "The objective was to get a nationwide demonstration of concern for the environment so large that it would shake the political establishment out of its lethargy."

It worked. President Richard Nixon signed a series of unprecedented laws creating the Environmental Protection Agency, establishing national limits for air and water pollutants, and requiring environmental impact assessments before federally funded projects could begin.

Since then, a new generation of activist organizations, including Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council, have come into being.

"There really wasn't an environmental movement 30 years ago," said Hayes, the coordinator for Earth Day celebrations in 1970, 1990 and today. "The Sierra Club national office in 1969 consisted of one full-time volunteer."

Back then, a few activists worked on traditional green issues such as conservation, the protection of wilderness and animals. But none tackled urban ones, such as industrial pollution.

"There was almost a universal acceptance of unhealthy conditions. Sulfur dioxide in smokestack emissions were the price, or smell, of prosperity," said Hayes.

High-tech improvements in industrial nations have accompanied the heightened awareness. More efficient autos produce a fraction of the emissions their counterparts did three decades ago. Use of alternative energy sources such as solar and wind power has grown exponentially while use of others such as nuclear power have declined. Smokestack scrubbers catch pollutants before they enter the air.

"We've made some heroic efforts, but the Earth as a whole is in worse shape today than 30 years ago," Hayes said. "There has been 30 more years of greenhouses gases, species extinctions and population growth."

Hillary French, a senior researcher with the World Watch Institute, said global trends reveal a "significant deterioration" of the Earth's resources during the latter part of the 20th century.

Since 1950, she said, wood consumption has increased twofold, paper use sixfold, fish consumption fivefold, water and grain consumption threefold, and fossil fuel burning fourfold. Additionally, the planet's population has more than doubled from 2.5 billion to 6 billion.

Except for a strong resurgence on the 20th anniversary in 1990, Earth Day has for the most part failed to muster the enthusiasm and numbers of 1970. Some environmentalists question whether this year's event will be effective.

"The first one was much nicer," Dartmouth's Meadows said. "It was spontaneous and unorganized. It went beyond what anyone in charge wanted."

Jim Flynn, an activist with EarthFirst!, predicted the event's impact will be short-lived.

"People think of it like St. Patrick's Day, where they're Irish for a day. People need to make environmental action a standard practice," he said.

Hayes said, "When we held the first Earth Day, everyone said it was a success because of the huge turnout. It was probably the largest planned event across the country."

The following day, the Earth Day organizers placed an advertisement in The New York Times calling the event a failure. "We got everyone's attention, but we didn't solve any environmental problems," Hayes said.

Hayes wants the 2000 event to jump-start international action on clean energy. He cites a U.N. panel of international scientists that has issued increasingly dire reports about the role of fossil fuel burning in rising world temperatures.

"These are not exhortations from overwrought extremists, but carefully phrased warnings from some of the world's finest scientists," Hayes writes in a World Watch article.

Creators of a 200-foot-wide, 20-foot-high sand sculpture, spelling out 'First Earth Day 2000,' admire their work during an Earth Day celebration in the Florida Keys

Hayes and others are seeking to expand the environmental movement across all borders. Many cite the Montreal Protocol of 1987 as a breakthrough in international cooperation. Faced with evidence that chlorofluorocarbons consume the ozone layer over the polar regions, dozens of nations agreed to phase out CFC production.

But international environmental conferences since then have produced mixed results. World leaders met in Brazil in 1992 for the Earth Summit, which produced treaties calling for the protection of biodiversity. Delegates at the Rio de Janeiro conference included Indian chiefs in native dress who dramatized the plight of indigenous cultures.

In Japan in 1997, more than 100 countries agreed to set limits on emissions that contribute to global warming. Negotiators from Washington helped draft the Kyoto treaty, but the U.S. Senate has yet to ratify it.

Meanwhile, the United States produces more than 20 percent of all greenhouse gases. Between 1990 and 2000, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions rose 12 percent. That increase alone is more than the total amount produced this year by France and England combined, Hayes says in his "Earth Day Guide to Planet Repair."

The World Trade Organization meeting served as an international lightning rod last year, drawing tens of thousands of activists from around the world to Seattle.

They protested the WTO's de facto ability to veto environmental laws that it deems trade barriers. In recent years, the WTO voided regulations protecting endangered sea turtles off the U.S. coast and a European ban on the sale of hormone-laden beef.

The United States and Europe now are gearing up for a battle over genetically modified crops.

Already, independent farms are fighting multinational companies that want to market so-called terminator seeds, which critics say could render some natural plants sterile.

Former Sen. Nelson has championed the environment since the early 1960s when, as the Wisconsin governor, he instituted a penny-a-pack cigarette tax to purchase green space. Now a counselor with the Wilderness Society, he looks ahead with patience and cautious optimism.

"It took us 30 years to get to where we are now," he said. "It will take us 30 years to get to a point where the world approaches sustainability."

CNN Interactive Writer Richard Stenger, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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