Earth Day ad from New York Magazine (April 20, 1970)

[booksandcheeses.livejournal.com]

Comments

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

Topo Gigio - Eddie, kiss me good night! Man, the memories.

Sadly, I think we are in worse shape now that we were back in the 70's.

[zorinlynx.livejournal.com]

Believe me, we are better off now than during the 70s.

Especially New York. The city is incredibly clean now, especially the air due to pollution controls implemented in the last few decades.

It's easy to get caught up in thinking things were better back then. We tend to mostly remember the good things. I remember quite well how much litter and trash was strewn about during the 80s and how the smog was considerably worse.

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

I was looking at it - world wide. Back in the 70's, China wasn't as much of a concern as it is now. The last time we were in Beijing, the smog was so bad, your eyes ached from the glare of the sun - it reflected white and all the surfaces were black. It was awful. And the cars - yargles... Of course, Shanghai was worse still.

I think the US is trying, but globally, we still have a ways to go and that makes me sad.

[zorinlynx.livejournal.com]

This is true, sadly. China's newfound prosperity has come at a cost to their health, especially in big cities.

Much of the world has outsourced their industry to China, and in the process outsourced their pollution as well. :(

The Chinese government is partly at fault too. For being as authoritarian as they are you'd think they could mandate some serious pollution controls. But that would reduce profits. Can't have that!

Damnit.

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

We were doing a cruise down the Yangtze and it was horrible, the coal dust being harvest and huge tracks of land poisoned because of it. They want equal footing with the US, but without the controls we have in place to protect our resources. I think we were there back in the early 20th century, but saw the error of our ways.

Sadly, the entire planet is paying for their disregard.

[pronker]

Steps forward, steps back: we used to see discarded refrigerators and car skeletons in the creeks rusting away and didn't think much about it. Also, there was more litter in parks and along the roadways. Cleaning up after dogs is a large step forward. I guess the step back would be the disappearance of cute little fuzzy caterpillars that we used to play with at my Old Hometown. There haven't been any of them around in decades according to locals, and I visited it 2 years ago.

Gutter dog report.

[heather mccrillis (from livejournal.com)]

Huh, I STILL see throwing shopping carts and mattresses into the local drainage ditch. There was a TV in there a few years ago. I have no idea whether it's mostly folks who live on the Minneapolis side who do this (We have our trash picked up by the city and we pay for it through our water bills.) or the suburbs. (They have to choose a private company to take it away.)

My husky wants to go for a walk as I'm typing this. :/

Re: Gutter dog report.

[pronker]

We also have garbage and water bills combined; yes, mattresses are hard to get rid of, and thank goodness for the annual large-amount-of-crap pickup that the city sponsors! I got creative with an old box spring in between times, and weekly pared it down to springs which could fit into the recycle bin.

Aw, huskies, with the beautiful eyes ... I hadn't had a dog in years and was thus unaware of the doggie-clean-up movement when in 1988 or so, an owner walked by and allowed her dog to let fly on my lawn. I approached angrily, and sure enough, she whipped out the baggie to cart the mess away. Lesson learned!

[dandyads]

I didn't realize earth day had been around so long. I would think in America, the pollution and recycling situations are better today than they were back then, but on the other side, we're more wasteful. So much stuff today is disposable, we don't try to make things last, we just throw them out and buy something new (not to mention all the must-have technology that's constantly upgrading).

[ejia-arath03.livejournal.com]

I HATE planned obsolescence.

FLAMES ON THE SIDE OF MY FACE.

"Boycott businesses that use ugly neon signs."

[franklanguage.livejournal.com]

But businesses that use awesome ones get a free pass.

(www.lettherebeneon.com)