Talk:Earth Day

In a May 10, 2024 oral history interview I conducted with desert foods ethnobotanist Martha Ames Burgess, Martha recalled the following:

MAB: Okay. I'm going to jump back because in 1970 there was the first Earth Day. But I wanted to take us back to ’68 fall of ’68 because following the class that I'd had, a field Natural History class with Steve Russell at Uof A, that fall of ’68 we had a meeting of a bunch of people, you know, innovative students, who felt that we needed some sort of celebration of the earth, a consciousness, celebration about earth and its processes and populations and so on. And so we met in Cave Creek, Arizona, in the Chiricahua Mountains, and to envision, and it was all of the students from Steve Russell's class and others, other interesting thinkers and ecologists and so on, naturalists. And I, as far as I can tell, that was the first planning, the first inklings. There may have been other groups elsewhere with the same idea, but I think it was the nascent plan for Earth Day, which didn't happen in ’69 it waited till ’70 before it really could materialize.

TM: Who do you remember was at that meeting?

MAB: Gosh. People like Rich Vogt and, oh golly. I am not remembering all the dignitaries. We weren’t dignitaries. We were just a bunch of students.

TM: Okay. And was Steve Russell there, or was it just the students?

MAB: Oh, gosh, you know, I think Steve might have been there. He's that kind of person.

TM: Okay. And was this like a camp-out sort of thing?

MAB: Yeah, how we were camping, I think South Camp in the Cave Creek,

TM: Okay. In the Chiricahuas there in southwestern Arizona.

MAB: Southeastern.

TM: Sorry, southeastern Thank you. Yeah, I’m turned around. Up here in Flagstaff everything's backwards, so that's okay, you're exactly right.

MAB: So back to 1970.

TM: Okay, so, was the concept of Earth Day was, I'm going to stick with this for a minute, because I think this is important, especially if it's the foundational sprouting of Earth Day, the concept of the students was the need to celebrate the earth, get back to the earth. What was the thought?

MAB: To spread awareness of the understanding of earth’s processes. I’m mean there was such ignorance about the bigger picture, you know, like oceanic circulation, or weather circulation, climate circulation, I should say, and geological processes and ecological principles. And so we wanted to hold the mirror up somehow, to recognize and honor the earth in some significant way.

TM: And were you thinking about a day sometime, maybe next year, or the year after that, where we would recognize the earth? MAB: I don't know how detailed it was at that point.

TM: Okay.

MAB: We were just exploring possibilities and how to communicate with other people that needed to be a part of an earth wise movement.

That's all I have. You can listen to this interview here: https://grandcanyonazus.com/b.html

If you all think this is important enough, I'll work with Martha to boil this down to a sentence or two for your consideration. Please advise. Most cordially yours, Tom RRFWTommartin (talk) 01:12, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

So here's proposed text to be inserted as a stand alone paragraph between the first and second paras. Thoughts?

"In an Oral history interview conducted May 10, 2024, Tucson, Arizona based ethnobotanist Martha Ames Burgiss recounted a 1968 meeting of University of Arizona students and professors, including Ecology & Evolutionary Biology professor Dr. Stephen M. Russell. The meeting was held at Chiricahua National Monument to envision some sort of celebration of the earth and its processes. The meeting ended with the nascent plan for Earth Day. ^[1]

My thoughts: This is worthwhile to add, and I would place it in its own paragraph after the first section of the Earth Day 1970 section. You could introduce the content by saying: "Elsewhere in the US, discussions in higher education were also being held to discuss ways to honor the Earth." And then place the new text, concluding with: "The meeting ended with another nascent vision of Earth Day." BhamBoi (talk) 02:30, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

Excellent suggestion BhamBoi!! Thank you SO much! RRFWTommartin (talk) 03:34, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

There is mention in The Dirty Dozen section of the article that the protesting of Earth Day was modeled after the actions of African-Americans who "sat in the back of the bus". I would think that this line should be corrected to say they were sitting in the front of the bus, which would align with the other statements of sitting at segregated lunch counters. It also says that people would drink from segregated lunch counters, but perhaps this should say they would drink from segregated fountains. ~2026-10596-92 (talk) 22:30, 16 February 2026 (UTC)