Earth Day Project
As part of our work in History 234 Wastes of War: A Century of Destruction we began to think about how the language of war and embattlement characterized much of the hubbub that surrounded the original Earth Day 50 years ago on April 22, 1970. Accordingly, we, a collaborative research team, decided to tell the history of Earth Day in new ways, focusing on the less happy parts and emphasizing the discontents rather than the triumphs in order to to think critically about a future of climate disruptions. Not surprisingly, Earth Day wasn’t invented at Penn. The Declaration of Interdependence, declared at Independence Mall, forgot about a lot of debts and glossed over a lot of dependences. History doesn’t repeat itself, but unless the mistakes of past are made visible, they have a way of seeping into the future. The “war” against the current pandemic serves as pointed example. As long as the privileged among us talk about saving the planet for all, those who live in perpetual precariousness will continue to feel as though their livelihoods are at best afterthoughts. If we want to safe the planet at all, we need to save it first for the most vulnerable among us.
Read more here: http://web.sas.upenn.edu/earthdayproject/