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City splits time with Arbor Day and Earth Day in Lions Park on Saturday

By Howard B. Owens

When is the last time you planted a tree?

Friday might be a good day to do it. It is Arbor Day, a day far more community minded than Earth Day, which rolls around tomorrow.

Bill Kauffman brings out this point in a recent essay on Front Porch Republic:

Earth Day was not of ignoble birth. It was the legislative child of Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-WI), a thoughtful liberal, who envisioned it as a national teach-in on the environment. The first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, was a hectoring mix of street theater, corporate p.r., and speeches by such paragons of restraint as Senators Ted Kennedy and Bob Packwood. Funding came, in part, from Dow Chemical and the Ford Motor Company. (The most prominent public opponents of the first Earth Day were the Daughters of the American Revolution, who had also fought vainly against the Uniform Holiday Act of 1968, which spawned the commerce trumps tradition three-day weekend.)

In the four decades since, Earth Day has become a bloodless holiday for pallid urbanites, the sort of technology-dependent yuppies whose rare encounters with the unregulated outdoors usually end in paralyzing fears of Lyme disease. Earth Day is about as green as a $100 bill.

The City of Batavia hosts an Earth Day event Saturday at Lions Park/Wallace Street, rain or shine, starting at 9 a.m. (in the actual press release, the city does give a nodding glance to Arbor Day).

The Batavia Youth Bureau will present "The Benefits of Gardening and Composting. There will be a tree planting ceremony by local Girl Scout troop #42153, a seed-starting display and a proclamation by the City Council.  Volunteers will then organized into trash pick up crews for a city park or downtown.  Every volunteer will get a chance to win a tree.

Somebody designed a lovely flier for the event. You can download the PDF here.

Peter O'Brien

Imagine that, 2 companies that are demonized for destroying the planet (which is horse squeeze) are responsible for the initial funding of Earth Day.

Apr 22, 2009, 9:02am Permalink

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