Congressman McCloskey along with Senator Gaylord Nelson were the co-chairs of the first Earth Day celebration in 1970. In this speech, Congressman McCloskey explains the relationship between Earth Day and Arbor Day. It was decided the date for Earth Day would always fall on April 22nd, because that was the traditional Arbor Day date. April 22nd is the birthday of J. Sterling Morton too.

I had to carefully listen to Congressman McCloskey’s speech several times to correctly transcribe the text below word for word.

“In 1970, there was a movement called the environmental movement, but environmentalists were viewed as little old ladies in tennis shoes, and students who were not very bright. Until Earth Day…and a man named Gaylord Nelson, Senator of Wisconsin, came to me and said….Pete! We got to have an Earth Day to celebrate the environment. I want it bicameral and I want it bilegislative. A Democrat…he was a Democrat, I was a Republican.

So we hired a kid named Denis Hayes, the Student Body President of Stanford…it was the heat of the Vietnam War. And we said, Denis…let’s have Earth Day on April 22nd. That relates to the old Arbor Day. Remember a guy said back in 1874 (sic) let’s plant a tree in Nebraska? Every school kid plants a tree, and every state now has an Arbor Day…”

Here is a link to the audio clip of the speech given by Congressman Paul ‘Pete’ McCloskey at the Alternative Fuel Vehicle’s conference and expo held in Anaheim, California in 2007, so you can hear the entire recording.

http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1232

Anyway this proves the historical connection between these two special days that celebrate nature and the act of planting trees.

http://www.arborday.org/index.cfm

What is really sad is the rapid increase in Acer rubrum, Red Maple..otherwise known as the Swamp Maple as a dominant species . It is a pretty fall foliage tree and has some forage value but it is nowhere near as long-lived or as good a timber tree as Sugar Maple or Oak and Hickory. Ash decline is advanced and one wonders if a little more prairie management in New England might be a way to fight arboreal disease. Many towns actually outlaw the use of fire as a management tool and this should stop.

But be careful about planting so many trees.

Some places have too many trees already. They need to be cut down so we can see the scenery.

Trees are taking over the Iowa prairie. Drive through Iowa on I-80 and you see trees where you used to be able to see the beautiful prairie.

Here in southwest Michigan, people are despoiling the little prairies of the prairie peninsula by planting trees on them. Those little prairies are what first attracted Euro-American settlers to this area. They kicked out the native peoples who had preferred them for their own agriculture. But now we’re losing them because people are building homes on them and planting trees. How about a national Prairie Restoration Day instead of Arbor Day?

To hell with EARTH DAY, hooray for Arbor Day!