On a sticky and sunny Sunday in the summer of 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland did something rivers should never do.
KABOOM!
No one was surprised, surprisingly. It’s burned before, people said. It’ll burn again.
Which was true. Since 1886, it happened thirteen times. In 1912, five people lost their lives. And the 1952 fire caused over a million dollars in damage.
from The Day the River Caught Fire
written by Barry Wittenstein
illustrated by Jessie Hartland
Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Books for Young Readers, 2023
I disagree with Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, when he alludes to humans’ need for a little magic to make the world right. We don’t need magic. We need information. We need encouragement. And we need determination. That combination makes magic.
When William Shakespeare was born (April 23, 1564) the Thames River was so polluted that you could smell its stink for miles. In 1969, the Cuyahoga River was so polluted that it caught fire and became part of a movement. The 1969 fire was not the Cuyahoga’s first fire. It was not even the worst one. (See quote above)
After the fire was put out, Clevelanders went back to work or home or school,
But in the wake of the monumental impact of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (Houghton/Mifflin, 1962), a quiet movement had begun.
“[T]he times, they were a-changin’.”
Time Magazine published an article about the fire in March, 1970. In December, 1970, the Cuyahoga River fire was highlighted in a cover story in National Geographic titled “Our Ecological Crisis.”
When Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin visited Santa Barbara, California, in 1969, a massive oil spill had just ravaged the coast. Attention to the harm being done to our environment became his priority.
On April 22, 1970, under the leadership of Senator Nelson and his aide Denis Hayes, an environmental activist, the United States celebrated our first Earth Day. “An estimated 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies. (earthday365).
On December 2, 1970, Congress established the Environmental Protection Agency to strengthen the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948.
First passed in 1972, The Clean Water Act has been amended several times. Through tighter restrictions, our water (and air) have become cleaner.
In 2019, fish caught in the Cuyahoga River were deemed “fit to eat,” but after rollbacks in the first Trump administration, on August 25, 2020, the river caught fire again. Storm drains allowed sewage, toxins, and fertilizer to flow into the river during heavy rains. The 2020 fire started when a fuel tanker spilled its flaming contents into the river after a traffic accident.
An article in GreatLakesNow.com (2/13/24) reports that it depends on who you ask and what their standards are to determine if the fish you catch are safe or not.
Until Lee Zeldin was confirmed as the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on January 20, 2025, many stabilizing measures had been working.
We need our governmental leaders to make and enforce laws and standards that protect us and the environment.
We need environmental scientists, climatologists, and geneticists. They ask questions they think they know answers to, just to discover if they actually could be wrong. After all, it’s really effective to learn from our mistakes. Scientists have shown us that we continue to make many, and many dangerous mistakes. They show us that we human beings have had a profound affect on our environment, especially in the days and years since the Industrial Revolution.
It is hard to convince people of that profound affect.
Denial has taken hold especially in the time of Trump. The concept of denial is well-understood, well-documented, and much written about. We can be in denial about our own mortality or that of a loved one. We can be in denial about how the hot-fudge sundae we ate last night really affects our weight-control efforts. We can be in denial about a drinking or drug habit. According to psychological research, the enormity of the problem does not allow our brains to process its reality.
Here’s how the thinking goes: “It’s only one straw. The ocean is vast. My one straw won’t matter in the whole scheme of things. And I'm tossing it in the trash.” But somewhere down deep, we know the fallacy of this kind of thinking. It’s the cumulative effect that matters.
The fact of climate change is easy to deny. It is just too big to wrap our heads around. And millions of people are climate change deniers.
Try to imagine, though, that our Earth will suffocate/drown/blow away or burn up if we don’t acknowledge climate change and start working diligently toward solutions. Together.
So what is the solution? Just like any huge problem or project, we must break it into smaller, more achievable goals. We need to tell our government officials that we are concerned about our planet. We need to make collective decisions that will benefit all of humanity and all of our shared earth. We all need to be involved on whatever level we can be.
With so much chaos, it’s difficult to focus on one enormous problem for an extended period of time. So much is so necessary.
Mother Nature is nothing if not fair. She responds harshly to abuse, but is abundantly forgiving when we treat her with love and generosity.
Let’s take one day off from worrying about wars, ICE detentions, and mass shootings. Let’s promise Mother Nature for just one day that we’ll be more cautious, more care-full, and more grateful for her gifts.
Happy Earth Day!
I’m reading Inheriting Edith by Zoe Fishman (William Morrow, 2016). Maggie’s former employer (she cleaned the house) died unexpectedly and left Maggie her house and everything in it including her 82-year-old mother. This one’s full of laughs, heartaches, and a two-year old. Recommended.
Be curious! (and plant a tree, or hug one)
KABOOM!
No one was surprised, surprisingly. It’s burned before, people said. It’ll burn again.
Which was true. Since 1886, it happened thirteen times. In 1912, five people lost their lives. And the 1952 fire caused over a million dollars in damage.
from The Day the River Caught Fire
written by Barry Wittenstein
illustrated by Jessie Hartland
Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Books for Young Readers, 2023
I disagree with Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, when he alludes to humans’ need for a little magic to make the world right. We don’t need magic. We need information. We need encouragement. And we need determination. That combination makes magic.
When William Shakespeare was born (April 23, 1564) the Thames River was so polluted that you could smell its stink for miles. In 1969, the Cuyahoga River was so polluted that it caught fire and became part of a movement. The 1969 fire was not the Cuyahoga’s first fire. It was not even the worst one. (See quote above)
After the fire was put out, Clevelanders went back to work or home or school,
But in the wake of the monumental impact of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (Houghton/Mifflin, 1962), a quiet movement had begun.
“[T]he times, they were a-changin’.”
Time Magazine published an article about the fire in March, 1970. In December, 1970, the Cuyahoga River fire was highlighted in a cover story in National Geographic titled “Our Ecological Crisis.”
When Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin visited Santa Barbara, California, in 1969, a massive oil spill had just ravaged the coast. Attention to the harm being done to our environment became his priority.
On April 22, 1970, under the leadership of Senator Nelson and his aide Denis Hayes, an environmental activist, the United States celebrated our first Earth Day. “An estimated 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies. (earthday365).
On December 2, 1970, Congress established the Environmental Protection Agency to strengthen the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948.
First passed in 1972, The Clean Water Act has been amended several times. Through tighter restrictions, our water (and air) have become cleaner.
In 2019, fish caught in the Cuyahoga River were deemed “fit to eat,” but after rollbacks in the first Trump administration, on August 25, 2020, the river caught fire again. Storm drains allowed sewage, toxins, and fertilizer to flow into the river during heavy rains. The 2020 fire started when a fuel tanker spilled its flaming contents into the river after a traffic accident.
An article in GreatLakesNow.com (2/13/24) reports that it depends on who you ask and what their standards are to determine if the fish you catch are safe or not.
Until Lee Zeldin was confirmed as the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on January 20, 2025, many stabilizing measures had been working.
We need our governmental leaders to make and enforce laws and standards that protect us and the environment.
We need environmental scientists, climatologists, and geneticists. They ask questions they think they know answers to, just to discover if they actually could be wrong. After all, it’s really effective to learn from our mistakes. Scientists have shown us that we continue to make many, and many dangerous mistakes. They show us that we human beings have had a profound affect on our environment, especially in the days and years since the Industrial Revolution.
It is hard to convince people of that profound affect.
Denial has taken hold especially in the time of Trump. The concept of denial is well-understood, well-documented, and much written about. We can be in denial about our own mortality or that of a loved one. We can be in denial about how the hot-fudge sundae we ate last night really affects our weight-control efforts. We can be in denial about a drinking or drug habit. According to psychological research, the enormity of the problem does not allow our brains to process its reality.
Here’s how the thinking goes: “It’s only one straw. The ocean is vast. My one straw won’t matter in the whole scheme of things. And I'm tossing it in the trash.” But somewhere down deep, we know the fallacy of this kind of thinking. It’s the cumulative effect that matters.
The fact of climate change is easy to deny. It is just too big to wrap our heads around. And millions of people are climate change deniers.
Try to imagine, though, that our Earth will suffocate/drown/blow away or burn up if we don’t acknowledge climate change and start working diligently toward solutions. Together.
So what is the solution? Just like any huge problem or project, we must break it into smaller, more achievable goals. We need to tell our government officials that we are concerned about our planet. We need to make collective decisions that will benefit all of humanity and all of our shared earth. We all need to be involved on whatever level we can be.
With so much chaos, it’s difficult to focus on one enormous problem for an extended period of time. So much is so necessary.
Mother Nature is nothing if not fair. She responds harshly to abuse, but is abundantly forgiving when we treat her with love and generosity.
Let’s take one day off from worrying about wars, ICE detentions, and mass shootings. Let’s promise Mother Nature for just one day that we’ll be more cautious, more care-full, and more grateful for her gifts.
Happy Earth Day!
I’m reading Inheriting Edith by Zoe Fishman (William Morrow, 2016). Maggie’s former employer (she cleaned the house) died unexpectedly and left Maggie her house and everything in it including her 82-year-old mother. This one’s full of laughs, heartaches, and a two-year old. Recommended.
Be curious! (and plant a tree, or hug one)
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