I recently read a news story about former astronaut William “Bill” Anders having died in a plane crash. It brought back poignant memories of his iconic photograph of the planet Earth from the moon.
It was Christmas Eve in 1968. That evening my family was in the den huddled around our console-model Magnavox color TV. The Christmas tree lights gave the room a festive, multicolored glow. But for me and my younger brother, it was the brightly colored, neatly wrapped gifts spreading out from under the tree that held our attention.
We were watching some Christmas-themed variety show when the network broke in for a breaking news alert. The story was that the astronauts of Apollo 8 were orbiting the moon. Then something happened that would affect the way all mankind would view the planet Earth from that point forward.
In an instant, a transformative moment in time, we were all fixed on a full-color image of the Earth being broadcast live from the spacecraft, just miles from the moon. It was a stunning sight. I don’t recall anyone in my family saying anything, but we were all aware that we were looking at something no human being had ever seen. That photo was NASA’s Christmas gift to all God’s children.
The planet seemed so small, and so desperately lonely – like a blue gemstone suspended in an eerie backdrop of a pure black void. It appeared so fragile, like one of the round glass ornaments on the Christmas tree. The main thing was, it was finite. We had always thought of the earth as infinite, so large that our natural resources could easily absorb our pollutants and would last forever. Clearly, that was a false assumption.
Fifty years later, retired astronaut Bill Anders reflected on the event, “We set out to explore the moon, but instead we discovered the Earth.”
Margaret Mead, the always-insightful cultural anthropologist of the time, wrote, “It was not until we saw the picture of the Earth, from the moon, that we realized how small and helpless this planet is – something that we must hold in our arms and care for.”
This novel image of our fragile, finite planet was a splash of rocket fuel poured onto the flickering fires of the environmental movement of the 1960s. We collectively realized that we could no longer afford to pollute our precious planet.
The first Earth Day was held in 1970. Twenty million Americans attended those inaugural Earth Day activities. The EPA was established, and the federal Clean Air Act was passed that same year. The Clean Water Act followed in 1972.
In the decades that followed, from the individual states to Washington, D.C., the talk was all about finding ways to limit the pollutants pouring from our smokestacks and spewing from the tail pipes of our cars and trucks. We started treating wastewater to newly developed standards, before discharging it into our rivers, lakes and streams.
The watchword all across the country was, “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”
Dennis Chastain is a Pickens County naturalist, historian and former tour guide. He has been writing feature articles for South Carolina Wildlife magazine and other outdoor publications since 1989.
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