GB No. 1, autumn 1989
On April 22,1990, more than 100 million people world wide will launch a campaign to save our planet. Individually and collectively, we will serve notice that it's time to face an array of global problems: toxic wastes, shrinking rain forests, greenhouse gases, ozone holes, expanding deserts, oil spills, acid rain, ocean pollution, and other manifestations of today's urgent, mulifaceted environmental crisis.
Dwarfing all other prospective dangers except full-scale thermonuclear war, the environmental crisis requires an immediate world wide mobilization. Unless we turn the world around in the next ten years, unprecedented disasters will be unavoidable. Earth Day will be a global event to demonstrate our concern for the environment. It will launch the 1990's as the decade of the environment.
The original Earth Day, celebrated on April 22, 1970, was the largest organized demonstration in history with more than 20 million people participating. The time is ripe for another Earth Day, this time international in scope, that will link local concerns to global crises. We must act together as a planet to overcome our problems. Present environmental problems transcend political boundaries and necessitate global action.
Decisions about how best to participate must be made locally. Every country, every city, every group, every neighborhood, and every school will have its own organizers with their own issues and agendas. Ultimately the success of Earth Day in Tokyo, Beijing, Brussels, Cracow, Moscow, Nairobi, New York, Sao Paulo, and Sydney will be determined by local organizers with the ability to put together a meaningful event. Yet all will be tied together by a shared set of values, and a shared vision of our common future.
Activites will range from planting to urban gatherings to campus "teach-ins". Please let us know what you plan to do for Earth Day. We are busy putting together a newsletter that will include information from grups all around the world about their activities for April 22, 1990. We may put you on our mailing list.
A global appeal uniting the nations of the world in a common expression of concern about our earth will mark the begining of a long term commitment to building a safe, just, sustainable planet. I am hopeful that you will see a way in which you can became involved in Earth Day 1990.
Teresa McGlashan
International Coordinator
P.O. Box AA
Stanford University, California 94305
Econet: Earth Day
phone: 415-321-1990, fax: 415-321-2040