Learning through celebration is the goal, anyway, and that’s a big part of what I’ve been doing instead of blogging. Well… planning to do. We now have the schedule for Cabrillo College’s Earth Week teach-ins and festivities. You may note that I’m once again giving a talk on ape conservation with Renée Kilmer.
Why a week? Isn’t it “Earth Day,” normally? Yes, it started out as Earth Day in 1970 – April 22nd as a day to focus activist energies on environmental issues. In part, it was a response to the Santa Barbara oil spill in 1969. (Sadly, it wasn’t enough to stop investment in even deeper, riskier oil drilling, with predictably unpleasant consequences.)
I got interested in Earth Day in the late 1980’s, helping to organize events in Contra Costa county. So when I got to Cabrillo College, I was looking forward to working with other organizers to do teach-ins here. These wonderful people had discovered that there were too many things to talk about in just one day, so events were spread out in the week surrounding or leading up to Earth Day. Hence the Cabrillo Earth Week celebration (April 16-21st this year).
It’s a lovely time of year to celebrate, at least locally. We’ve had interesting weather this week (lots of that going around – see below), but it’s shaping up to be sunny and cooperative for our Earth Week festivities. Come join us!
Ponderings of a Perplexed Primate 