When I was five in 1971 an ad aired frequently of a Native American man paddling a canoe through a stream and crying as teenagers threw garbage out of a car window. The ad ran for years and made me sad. (See link below.)

In response to the crying man in the canoe, my friend Jon and I walked around town and picked up trash for fun. This made us feel like very good young citizens.

2024’S EARTH DAY theme: PLANET V. PLASTICS

NOTE: Later, I learned that the companies behind Keep America Beautiful wanted to stop laws that would make them sell drinks in reusable bottles. This lobbying group wanted voters to look at the ad and think people made pollution one person at a time. Keep America Beautiful did not want people to think that big companies caused pollution. A practice that continues today.

“The great question of the Seventies is…shall we make our peace with nature and begin to make reparations for the damage we have done to our air, to our land, and to our water.”

—President Nixon from his first State of the Union address in 1970

SOURCES & RESOURCES: 

LINK TO KEEP AMERICA BEAUTIFUL AD:  https://youtu.be/h0sxwGlTLWw?feature=share

https://www.nixonfoundation.org/

https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/news/earth-day

https://www.earthday.org/factsheets/

https://earth911.com/inspire/earth-day-23-quotes/