I painted this portrait of Rachel Carson while sitting at a picnic table in Menlo Park at Perkasie Pennsylvania’s Earth Day observance, yesterday. Earlier in the week, on Kid’s Corner, on WXPN Radio, I had heard the history of Earth Day and learned that there would never have been an Earth Day had it not been for Rachel Carson, and her scientific insights and tenacity. Yet she died in 1964 and the first Earth Day was in 1970. It was her book, Silent Spring, which had so caught Sen. Gaylord Nelson’s imagination and empowered his environmentalism.

It was the first time such a book, a scientific and fairly technical book had caught the imagination of the general population of the US. The title was the thing that did it. Rachel Carson was a marine biologist and a chemist and had noticed how the pesticides, particularly DDT, accumulated as it traveled up the food chain to the larger, predatory birds, like hawks, vultures and eagles. One of its effects was to reduce the presence of calcium, so that the egg shells were so soft that they would be crushed in the nest during incubation. Theoretically, with the continued overuse of these pesticides, we could reach the point where we would no longer hear birdsong in the Spring. Another effect was actually making malaria resistant mosquitoes. She testified before the Senate. For this, she was mocked and attacked for being a single woman. Her character was questioned. She was slandered, even though she had made sacrifices to support her widowed mother and sisters through the Great Depression and adopted her orphaned nephew, etc., because she had a good income from her books.

The first Earth Day was not a convenient, fun event on a Saturday or Sunday to remind us to Reuse, Reduce, Recycle (which is a dubious tactic which only slows the path of consumer goods to ever-growing landfills). It was on a Wednesday. Over 20,000,000 Americans took part. No one really knows for sure how many. It was organized and ‘documented’ before the days of the internet or cellphones in schools of all levels. Many turned it into Earth Week, like the University of Minnesota did, with a week-long environmental “teach-in” and fair. I helped organize our Earth Day (April 22) at Carl Sandburg Junior High in Golden Valley, Minnesota. We started by hundreds of us, who normally rode the bus to school, walked and picked up litter as we came in and as we went home. That day, about half of the classes were taught outdoors and the lessons involved environmental, conservation or ecological themes. About 100 of us vowed to permanently abandon the buses and either bicycle or walk for the rest of the school year. This actually did reduce emissions as most of these were students who were those involved in after school activities who would quite often get special activity bus rides home, which now could be eliminated.

Earth Day was the closest thing that the US had ever had to general strike. Pres. Nixon was already under pressure from the Watergate investigation. Earth Day/Week scared him to death. He knew he had to do something about this. By July, he had started the EPA. He knew he could not survive in office if he did not respond to the people on this. DDT was banned. Emission and water purity standards were established. Mileage standards were imposed Speed limits were reduced. Air and water quality dramatically improved. Cancers and other diseases were reduced by millions! Now we have a buffoon in the White House who is trying to undo all of that! And we have a yarn bombing on a Saturday in the park instead of Earth Day.

Rachel Carson was born on May 27, 1907, on her family’s farm near Springdale, PA. She died of complications of breast cancer in her home in Silver Spring, MD, April 14, 1964. This portrait is in my “Heroes” series.

Painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.

Price: $125 plus postage.

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