Earth Day Musings

4.22.20 | Colleen Madden

Today is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. 50 years! The first Earth Day was a call-to-arms, a stimulus, and the birth of a movement. The 1970 Earth Day jumpstarted the environmental movement and produced national legislation that still impacts us today, including the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency. [1]

50 years later, how has Earth Day evolved? It is still celebrated in schools, and brands certainly take advantage of the day, for better or worse. Earth Day has spawned countless marketing campaigns, some altruistic and some self-serving, some memorable and some not so much. We expect to see media coverage around Earth Day, and plenty of social posts about it, but is it still a call-to-arms, or even a call-to-action?

If the first Earth Day was a mobilization of sorts, it is worth noting its continued impact of environmental awareness across our lives and across industries. Advertising certainly has changed for the better from an eco-friendly point-of-view. I have not quite been in the business long enough to remember doing TV and radio buys by hand on paper, but I have been around long enough to remember the days of printing and faxing buys, including revision after revision, printed and reprinted. It’s hard to believe that was only a little more than a decade ago, when now, nearly every step in the media buying process is done virtually. If nothing else, the advertising industry has certainly saved some trees in the past decade.

Now, with the 50th anniversary falling under the time of social distancing, Earth Day as a call-to-action for behavior change takes on a different challenge. At Inline Media, we do a lot of behavior change campaigns, and understand that change is a process that involves education, shifts in perception, changes in intentions, and then eventually a transformation. Yet when behavior change is forced upon us, many of these steps are skipped, making the lasting impact of the change questionable.

In the past month, many of us have driven our cars less, replaced in-person meetings with virtual ones, and slowed down the pace of our lives. We know that not all changes that we have made will last once we are unencumbered by shelter-at-home orders, but what if they did? While they seem like small changes on an individual or household level, when taken on a global scale, they could have lasting impact on the lives of people across the world.

Consider the correlation between air quality and severity of reactions to the COVID-19 virus. COVID-19 death rates are higher in places with greater pollution.[2]  Satellite images depict decreasing smog and pollution all over the world as stay-at-home orders remain in place. If some of the behavior change of the past month becomes permanent and we see a global trend toward more virtual economic activity and less driving and air travel, those choices could simultaneously help the planet and save lives.

It is doubtful that the behavioral changes brought on by COVID-19 will produce the same environmental sea change that occurred after the first Earth Day in 1970. But 50 years later, the relationship between our planet and the humans that inhabit it remains crucial, and this human will continue to think hard about the changes I’ve made in the past few weeks, their impact on the planet, and how they can be sustainable for the future.

Sources

[1] https://www.earthday.org/50-years-later-the-new-york-times-runs-another-full-page-ad-for-earth-day/

[2].https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/air-pollution-covid-19-and-earth-day/