Lincoln Chafee: “Today we celebrate the 27th anniversary of the first Earth Day. In the spirit of that celebration, it behooves us to…”

“Today we celebrate the 27th anniversary of the first Earth Day. In the spirit of that celebration, it behooves us to remember how the first Earth Day came about, and what brought it about. In the 1960's, a series of events occurred that shocked the Nation into an awareness of the need to protect the environment. Rachel Carson wrote her famous book, 'Silent Spring,' in 1962. The country was appalled by her revelations of the destruction caused to our environment by widespread pesticide use--DDT and others, for example. Then, in 1969, another extraordinary event occurred--the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire. When a river catches fire, it certainly is an eye catcher. Why did it catch fire? It was so polluted with oils and other substances that it suddenly burst into flames. That is, somebody threw a match into the river and it caught fire. Extraordinary. So in the early 1960's, a Democratic President, President Lyndon Johnson, laid the foundation for the major environmental laws that came later.”