pollution and environmental degradation.вЂќ Last month, on the occasion of the Sierra ClubвЂ™s 125th anniversary, Mair wrote, вЂњ Few Sierrans realize that race, population eugenics, and вЂnatural orderвЂ™ were critical features and values of our founders and naturalist societies of the late 19th and 20th centuries, which largely blamed environmental degradation on developing and non-European populations.вЂќ He added, вЂњ It was not until Earth Day in 1970-nearly eight decades after the Sierra ClubвЂ™s founding-that environmentalism per se arose in response to the crises of. The first Earth Day also marked the environmental movementвЂ™s break from its white supremacist roots. As Brentin Mock recounted in Grist, Earth Day coordinator Denis Hayes вЂњwanted to marry science with social justice activism.вЂќ At the time, Hayes said that organizersвЂ™ вЂњgoal is not to clean the air while leaving slums and ghettos, nor is it to provide a healthy world for racial oppression and war.вЂќ C ivil rights activist Channing Phillips, another organizer, recognized that environmental problems would not be distributed equally: вЂњ injustice, war, urban blight, and environmental rape have a common denominator in our exploitive economic system.вЂќ In fact, the organizers even made racial equality central to their message. вЂњThe original founders of Earth Day literally borrowed pages from the then-happening civil rights movement to engage in righteous civil disobedience, righteous group mass action, to have humanity look at environmental degradation and the degradation of lives of individuals,вЂќ Mair said. Founded in 1970, amid rising awareness of industryвЂ™s unchecked pollution of the air and water, its organizers aimed to apply the lessons of civil-right activism to the environmental movement.

вЂњ We need to make people uncomfortable, to shatter that convenience.вЂќД®arth Day wasnвЂ™t supposed to be a corny celebration of green living. вЂњRight now people might take a styrofoam cup and paint a planet on it with paint that might be tainted with lead,вЂќ said Aaron Mair, the Sierra ClubвЂ™s first black president. The president of one such leading environmental group agrees. вЂњIt has turned into a device for the mostly white male-led nonprofit industrial complex to raise money for causes they donвЂ™t have a plan for,вЂќ he said, citing the amorphous fight against climate change and general environmental degradation. Earth Day is a manifestation of that disconnect-an event that, like much of the environmental world, focuses too much on making white people feel good about recycling and driving Pruises than helping those suffering from environmental injustice. Rogers-Wright derides the вЂњso-called movementвЂќ because, he says, the nationвЂ™s leading environmental groups too often neglect environmental justice communities. For a disproportionate number of low-income, minority communities across America, Earth Day will be just another day of living downwind of fossil fuel power plants, which President Donald Trump has promised to further deregulate. The people of Flint, Michigan will continue to drink tap water through a filter, because tens of thousands of city pipes are tainted with lead. Meanwhile, in North Dakota, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe will brace for the flow of oil alongside their sacred land, thanks to the recent completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline. And countless Americans will mark the day by going for a long run or practicing yoga outdoors, as if they donвЂ™t already do that every weekend.

Bars will host вЂњgreen-consciousвЂќ tap takeovers and donate the proceeds to tree planting (or, in some cases, not donate anything at all). Businesses will convene вЂњ swap shopsвЂќ where people can exchange old clothes and other miscellany they donвЂ™t want anymore. Zoos and museums will throw вЂњ parties for the planet,вЂќ complete with composting workshops. This Saturday, on Earth Day, children will paint their faces at mini carnivals and teenagers will pick up trash in public parks.

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