Dedicated “to the tree from which this book was made,” this compilation of speeches made across the United States during the week of the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, is a record of the issues that drove the establishment of Earth Day. Entries in the Eco-Dictionary appendix include Air Quality, DDT, Fossil Fuel, Greenhouse Effect, Lead, and Pesticides. Speakers included scientists, politicians, community activists, and artists such as Walter F. Mondale, then a senator from Minnesota, the novelist Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Freddie Mae Brown, a social worker and founder the St. Louis Metropolitan Black Survival Committee, and Rennie Davis, an anti-war activist. Environmental Action served as the national coordinating office for environmental groups on campuses, in high schools, and communities in anticipation of Earth Day: “Anyone who is serious about saving the environment must prepare for a long and difficult fight…”

Compiled and edited by the National Staff of Environmental Action
Earth Day—The Beginning: A Guide for Survival
New York: Arno Press & The New York Times, 1970

CO2 PPM in 1970: 323.9

Additional Information

E-book can be borrowed here: https://archive.org/details/earthdaybeginnin00envi.