The Ad That Started The Environmental Movement

[RestoreGore]

Below you can view the ad that is said to have sparked the environmental movement that began in earnest on the first Earth Day in 1971. My thoughts on that, and what and who I believe can and will rekindle it.

"Crying Indian" Ad

I was just a young girl in the early seventies, but a young girl who was very concerned about the planet and what it would look like when I had children years from then. By 1971 when the first Earth Day was celebrated and the first "Crying Indian" ad was played on that day, I had already written to President Nixon asking him to please do something to help us make this world cleaner for our children and us, offering my own solutions as a girl of twelve. When I saw the ad on television, I cried. I cried because as a child I felt as though I was helpless in doing anything to stop the toxic pollution that people were spewing into rivers and lakes and into our air even though I knew it would effect me years later... but after seeing that ad I knew that even as a young girl of 12, I could make a difference.

I then helped put together neighborhood cleanups through my school that were very successful and earned me and my classmates a commondation from the community. I then made it my personal goal to always live my life in the service of my planet to do all I could in my power as one person to walk the walk in my life, educate others, and to speak out for our planet.

The link above allows you to view the "Crying Indian" ad from the seventies if you wish to. It requires Real Player to view. I just viewed it  and shed a tear again, because now that I am a woman and have a child past the age I first started becoming involved in this issue, I still see garbage on shorelines, pollution in our air, and toxic waste being spewed in our water.

And now we and our children face an even more urgent crisis as we continue to rapaciously spew CO2, methane, and other gases into the atmosphere daily, not only polluting our water and air, but also now bringing about changes to the very biosphere we live in that threaten our ability to sustain ourselves. How truly tragic that in over thirty years time people even though they recognize the problem exists, STILL continue the behavior that makes the crisis. This simply cannot go on.

What will our children be doing in thirty years time? Will they have a planet worth living on? Will they thank us for taking the steps necessary to preserve this planet for them to hand over to them to then preserve for their children? Will they even remember An Inconvenient Truth, and the warning but hope that Al Gore brought to everyone regarding the resources we had and the will we needed to save our planet?

It is in OUR hands to make sure that they do remember, and it is not a soundbite, a joke, nor something to be used as a political maneuver. It is our lives. And it is because of ads like the one above that moved me and that transcended politics and spoke to the human heart and conscience, that the conscience of our country was awakened then regarding our environment and just how important it is in relation to all else.

It must be awakened again and this time for good. Rachel Carson started it, ads like the above sustained it, and I now believe Al Gore (who has surely found his calling) and An Inconvenient Truth will rekindle it, but again, only if WE have the will. Where has that spirit and passion of thirty years ago gone? We must find it, and we must pass it on to our children. Otherwise, no ad in the world will be able to undue the damage we have done and will continue to do by our own hand to our only home. And that will be worthy of many tears.



How many more generations will have to shed tears for the failings of the past? Where it concerns our Earth, failure now is not an option.

[Botany]

1. That ad was an example of industrial strength bull shit

It was put out by the bottle, can, beer, and soft drink companies .....

None of the litter in it showed ANY GLASS BOTTLES OR EMPTY POP OR BEER CANS.

[RestoreGore]

3. The premise of this is...

that regardless if it was paper, plastic, or glass, WE put it there. It is the same premise regarding the 70 million tons of CO2 we spew into the atmosphere daily that is now causing the current changes in our climate. I frankly don't care who put the ad out, it inspired me, and I hope to see An Inconvenient Truth inspire the youth of today as well, because this movie is definitely not industrial strength bullshit...it is reality.

[jberryhill]

11. It always struck me as trivializing pollution...

...by equating it to littering.

If I toss a plastic bottle or an aluminum can in the woods someplace, it's not harming the environment one iota. There are good reasons not to litter, but the environment is not in the shape it is in on account of people throwing trash out of car windows.

Litter is unsightly and wasteful, but this is like telling people to fight global warming by holding in their farts.

[RestoreGore]

14. It wasn't just trash

Oil and other waste dumped in our waterways is trash as far as I am concerned. Feces and poisons and fertilizers that run into our lakes from farms are also trash. It wasn't trivializing it in my view, it was waking people up to the fact that they were oblivious to their behavior contributing to it. There is also an aesthetic value to the environment, and birds have also been known to die from eating plastics left behind by humans for what that's worth to you. Sewers back up because of excess garbage stuffed in them. Cigarette butts stepped out in a street get washed down a sewer that winds up in the rivers and lakes that supply acquifiers. Trash does harm the environment, although, I don't recall stating the environment is in the shape it is in JUST because of trash. Tossing a can in the woods may not harm your immediate environment as long as you can drive away from it, but the woods are home to other species that don't deserve to have their homes trashed. And again, it isn't so much in seeing it as just trash, it is the MORAL lesson behind it. And you would be surprised at the amount of methane exerted by animals that "flatulate" on farms that does contribute to global warming, and I kid you not. Scientists have already reported about that. I'll post the link if I can find it.

[RestoreGore]

15. Here's one

http://library.thinkquest.org/J003411/causes.htm
I'll find the recent article I posted elsewhere and post it here.

[roguevalley]

26. given the time it was put out, with the science of the environment

in embryo stages, it was a landmine. it made the earth personal and I remember it to this day. remember it was what, thirty five years ago.

[globalvillage]

2. I don't have to watch it.

to remember.
I was also a 12 year old girl at the time, and I'll never forget that image.
Thanks for posting this.

[RestoreGore]

4. You're welcome n/t

[jpak]

5. seconded

n/t

[depakid]

6. That ad- and others like it fostered a intergenerational ethic

which unforunately was sorely missed by the Reagan Bush Clinton babies.

Let's also not forget Woodsy Owl:



"His old motto used to be "Give a hoot- don't pollute."

[RestoreGore]

13. Yes, it fell by the wayside...

Would be nice to see a really good ad come out right about now to counter the CEI BS. The Alliance for Climate Protection is supposedly going to be making ads regarding the climate crisis, although I haven't read anything about it yet.

[srulifsonmiles]

7. Fight, then cry; it's rape

Sister, that's what it is, war on terra. Fight like hell first. You'll feel a whole lot better later, even if you die trying.

[rosesaylavee]

8. Hey, I was the same age too

when I first saw that! And, as for the poster above, I never got the impression that it meant a specific kind of polluted materials... I thought it applied to anything that didn't belong in the street. I remember there was feeling of satisfaction when litter did seem to be reduced.

I still get ticked when I see people flick their cigarettes out the window or in a yard as they are NOT BIODEGRADABLE.

AND, I think that's why the Gore film this summer resonated so deeply in me.

Thanks for the post and thanks for the link. It was great to see that ad again.

[rocktivity]

9. (Pre-click prediction) ...the one with crying Indian?

:)
rocknation

[struggle4progress]

10. Great piece of ad. But the ad didn't start the enviro movement: ..

.. plenty of other things played a major role.

Good politics is more about people power than advertising ...

[RestoreGore]

17. Ads that motivate people...

Isn't that people power? I do believe this ad was what got more people involved in their communities, but I know it began before that, namely due to reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. The title is simply my opinion based on my own experience in what really moved me to action. And politics has absolutely nothing to do with it to me, and doubt there is any such animal as "good politics." Especially regarding this issue where it would seem that grassroots efforts have had much more effect than the political powerplaying that just uses this issue after looking at a poll. If you have to look at a poll to know what is morally right, you aren't a good politician in my view.

[struggle4progress]

24. Advertisements are mainly controlled by corporate interests. In some

contexts, these may reflect broader cultural factors, and I do not argue that in some situations advertisements may be a force for social change: the famous "You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's real Jewish rye" campaign was a beautiful piece of advertising combined with a humanist pro-multicultural message from the mid-60s.

Similarly, I will not dispute that the Crying Indian ad was moving and perhaps encouraged many people to "think of themselves" as environmentalists. But there were a number of distinct sources effectively organized against pollution long before the Crying Indian ad.

By "people power," I mean something quite different from advertisement: I mean organized groups working effectively for change. Advertisements and more generally mass media in the United States seldom serve to organize people for change but rather tend only to shape emotional responses -- with the result that Americans typically say they "support" a cause when they really mean they agree with the cause (without necessarily doing anything to support it). To my view, this leads to an over-emphasis on mass media, which is self-defeating because the mass media will almost always serve corporate interests rather than popular interests ...

[RestoreGore]

28. not if the people take it back...

As is the example with Al Gore's CURRENT Tv. Again however, this ad was over thirty five years ago, and back then it was considered a mover. And ey, I was only twelve years old and it moved me. So again, the correlation I hoped to make was that An Inconvenient Truth would now move young people today to do the same thing, especially since it is more than an ad it is a primer for life on this Earth in the future. Believe me, I know who controls the ads today and we would never see the Crying Indian on our sets today. That is how far things have fallen, which is why I suppose I never forgot it.

[DeepModem Mom]

12. Great post -- thanks, RestoreGore. nt

[RestoreGore]

18. You're welcome n/t

[ms liberty]

16. Wow - There must be a lot of us here who are about that same age!

I knew which ad you meant the minute I read the thread title - I didn't even need to see the ad or click on the thread. Some of the posts above seem to denigrate this ad, but it was very powerful when it was run back then. You just didn't see those kind of ads on the tube. And the Native American in the ad was probably one of the most respected in the country, everyone knew who he was - although right now my mind is blank as to what his name was!

Anyone who hasn't seen it, needs to look at it. We need an ad like this now that moves people, that has the emotion of this one.

Thanks for posting this - it really takes me back, and the message is just as important - no, MORE important - now as it was then.

[RestoreGore]

19. Exactly

Placed in the context of its time it was powerful. Unfortunate it still applies. And yes, it seems that many of us were the same age in 71. Funny too, because remembering back to those times, no matter how dark it seemed I always had hope. I haven't felt that way too much of late, and that saddens me. Which is why Al Gore's movie has renewed my hope that people may join together again for this common cause. At least, I sure hope so.

[roguevalley]

27. His last name was Iron Eyes. A really classy gentleman.

[Liberal Dose]

30. Actually his name was Espera DeCorti, son of Italian immigrants and the

most famous pretendian since Gray Owl.

Iron Eyes Cody was born Espera DeCorti on 3 April 1904 in the small town of Kaplan, Louisiana. He was the son of Francesca Salpietra and Antonio DeCorti, she an immigrant from Sicily who had arrived in the USA in 1902, and he another immigrant who had arrived in America not long before her. Theirs was an arranged marriage, and the couple had four children, with Espera (or Oscar, as he was called) their second eldest. In 1909, when Espera was five years old, Antonio DeCorti abandoned his wife and children and headed for Texas. Francesca married again, this time to a man named Alton Abshire, with whom she bore five more children.

http://www.snopes.com/movies/actors/ironeyes.htm

:D

[Pab Sungenis]

20. I always thought this one had as much impact

...and came out earlier.

[RestoreGore]

21. Thanks,,,/ Some new ads

Don't remember that one.

http://www.fightglobalwarming.com/

There are two new ads on this site about global warming that people can vote on. I voted for the train. Would love to see these on tv.

[Michael Nolan]

22. Correction

The first Earth Day was celebrated on April 30, 1970, not 1971.

I remember the "crying Indian" ad, but I don't think we can say that is what sparked the environmental movement. Doesn't anyone remember Ladybird Johnson's "Keep America Beautiful" campaign form 1964?

"Silent Spring" is generally considered the book that started the environmental movement, although I don't think we can ignore such important works as "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau, John Meir's work in the Sierra Nevadas, or Audubon's bird drawings. We even have to give some credit to President Teddy Roosevelt, who founded the first national park.

[Pachamama]

23. Pachamama means "Mother Earth"...I learned to honor her from the Achuar &

Huararani indians in Equador....Even over a decade ago as I saw for myself first hand the destruction of the Rainforests of Latin America and the Amazon by the deforestation and the oil companies drilling, the natives of these tribes talked to me about how we in the "North" needed to stop and change the "dream", because it was becoming a nightmare.

They told me back in 1997 that men who want Pachamama's blood (oil) were going to be starting great wars. They said that Pachamama was getting angry and if she got angry enough, she would shake us all off like a dog shakes off fleas.

They laughed about the idea of the destruction of Pachamama. They said she was here before humans and will be here after humans. This is actually about the destruction of humans. Pachamama will survive and go on - just without us. :cry:

[ochazuke]

25. I liked the ad too, but...

some ad experts say that since it 'normalizes' littering, that it actually will increase littering. People get the message from that ad that everyone is doing it.

And, mindless zombies that people are, that makes it O.K.

[mdelaguna2000]

29. But will conscience raising ever turn into action? (rant)

I like this thread and I like DU because there are so many people sensitive to these issues who are actually making changes in their lives.

The Al Gore movie (Inconv. Truth) is as good a message as we could hope for - but I have been astonished in polling my liberal circle of friends, who in principle think the movie's great and stand by everything it calls for, to learn that few have made any real changes in their consumption patterns of energy in their daily lives.

I thought the most powerful part of his movie was the hope he delivered at the end, that lots of small changes (not one big fits-all energy source solution) might in fact resolve the problem. Do I see people hanging their clothes out to dry instead of using dryers? Signing up for all-wind electrical supplies (available in our city) immediately? Washing dishes in cold water by hand instead of running the dishwasher? Taking shorter showers with less scalding hot water? Refraining from using air conditioners (rarely needed in our state, and I've had to wear a X$@% jacket all summer in my office as the AC is cranked up so high) ?? No, no, no.... are the answers to these questions.

Doesn't mean we give up the good fight, mind you. But if you can't convince card-carrying highly educated liberals, what hope is there? I saw some footage on t.v. yesterday about Ernesto heading for Florida, people filling up their gas cans - one thick-accented fellow claiming he'd be prepared to RUN HIS AIR CONDITIONER on his generator should the power fail. The sense of entitlement to energy consumption in this country seems an insurmountable obstacle to the problems Gore has laid out so well in his film.

[JohnWxy]

31. Getting people to do more than just talking about it is frustrating. Here

is post about something that everybody should be able to support - with emails:


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x65735

read post then go to www.congress.org and email your congressmen and senators (enter your zip under "Write your officials") and then email the media (you can do that too on congress.org) - they may even report about this!

[RestoreGore]

32. Your rant is right on

And a great concern of mine. Gas consumption isn't changing even as prices stay high. I think people truly need for it to get to the point of no return to say let's do something about it. It is as if the human species is inherantly built with a self destruct button. I simply don't understand what it will take. If Al Gore's movie doesn't move you ( in general), God help us.