Q&A: Denis Hayes, Planner of the First Earth Day, Discusses the ‘Virtual’ 50th

Denis Hayes was a 25-year-old graduate student at Harvard University when he read about a Wisconsin Senator, Gaylord Nelson, who was planning to organize an environmental teach-in on college campuses.

Co-founder of Earth Day Denis Hayes speaks at the
lighting of the Earth Ball press conference in Times
Square on April 22, 2009 in New York City. 

Hayes hightailed it to Washington, D.C., hoping to convince Nelson to let him organize a teach-in at Harvard, and maybe other colleges in and around Boston. Two days later, Hayes dropped out of the John F. Kennedy School of Government to coordinate a national event, "Earth Day."  

The day made history. The rest is environmental history, one that neither Hayes nor Nelson even expected.

On the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, climate change, deforestation and chemical-intensive agriculture had yet to become existential crises. The issue was pollution, the day a call to action to protect precious resources—-air, water, land and all living things—-from the encroaching toxins of industrial society. That proved enough to draw a crowd.

Read the story from Inside Climate News by Evelyn Nieves - “Q&A: Denis Hayes, Planner of the First Earth Day, Discusses the ‘Virtual’ 50th.”

Obama’s Climate Leaders Launch New Harvard Center on Health and Climate

Some of the Obama Administration's most outspoken advocates on climate change urged health experts to reach beyond the ivory tower as they reunited for the launch of a new center, focused on the health impacts of climate change, at Harvard University on Wednesday.

Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, shown
here in an earlier photo, will head Harvard's new
 Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment. 

Gina McCarthy, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency who will lead the Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment (C-CHANGE), joined John Kerry, the former Secretary of State who negotiated the Paris Agreement in 2015, and John Holdren, Obama's science advisor, to open its doors.

McCarthy, in an energetic speech that stood in sharp contrast to the gloom and doom that often accompanies talk of global warming, cast the threat of climate change as an opportunity to solve two problems at once.

Read the story by Phil McKenna from Inside Climate News - “Obama’s Climate Leaders Launch New Harvard Center on Health and Climate.”

Exxon accused by Harvard researchers of misleading public on climate change

Two Harvard University researchers say they have collected data proving Exxon Mobil Corp made "explicit factual misrepresentations" in newspaper ads it purchased to convey its views on the oil industry and climate science.

Exxon Mobil Corp knew more than it publicly
 admitted about climate change, according to a study.

In an article in the journal Environmental Research Letters, researchers Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes said they examined 187 documents, including internal memos, peer-reviewed papers by Exxon scientists and "advertorials" that ran in The New York Times — paid advertisements in the style of opinion pieces.

The researchers said they used a social science analysis method to turn statements in the documents into data points that could be counted and compared to each other.

Read ABC News story - “Exxon accused by Harvard researchers of misleading public on climate change.”

Naomi Oreskes - a 'lightning rod' in a changing climate

T

he job interviewer scrutinized the young American geology student sitting across from him. She was about to graduate from the Royal School of Mines in London, and was trying to break into a field long unwelcoming to women.

What, he wanted to know, might she have to contribute to the geology of mining? Naomi Oreskes had a simple answer: “I want to find an ore deposit!”

Naomi Oreskes - a "lightning
rod" in a changing climate.

She wound up in the Australian outback in the early 1980s — not to search for deposits, exactly, but to help work out the complex geology of one that had just been found. It would eventually become one of the world’s largest uranium mines.

Yet, in time, prospecting for ores could not hold her interest. Today, from a professorship at Harvard University, Dr. Oreskes is still in the mining business. But rather than digging for minerals, she tunnels into historical archives, and she is still finding radioactive nuggets.

Read more about what the New York Times said about the woman who is fast becoming one of the biggest names in climate science - “Naomi Oreskes, a Lightning Rod in a Changing Climate”.