If you are of a certain age, you may remember from 1971 what’s called the “Crying Indian Ad,” with a Native American man canoeing through water that appears at first pristine, before becoming increasingly polluted and nasty with floating debris, including newspaper. He paddles on under belching smokestacks and hazy, brown air, before pulling ashore amid more filth. He considers the landscape, then the final indignation happens. A fast-food bag thrown out of a car window bursts open onto his beaded moccasins. His response? A single tear that conveys absolute heartbreak.
The voiceover is this: “Some people have a deep, abiding respect for the natural beauty that was once this country. And some people don’t. People start pollution. People can stop it.”
Launched on Earth Day in 1971, the ad won a number of advertising awards and is still ranked as one of the best TV commercials of all time. For viewers, the Crying Indian became the symbol of environmental idealism.
At the time, the 1970 Clean Air Act and the 1972 Clean Water Act curbed pollution dramatically. The Endangered Species Act then passed in 1973. Environmentalism became a dominant social concern of the day, with genuine debate on the effect pollution was having as a whole, whether it was nuclear, chemical, agricultural or something else.
Now, on this Earth Day, our conversations center on climate change and our warming planet. NASA climate-change time series data drive home the point that our planet has heated up and transformed in technicolor, from cool blue shades in 1884 to angry hot yellow and red by 2021. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report is grim, at best, saying our efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions is not working. In fact, emissions have increased.
The science is in. The alarm has sounded. A longstanding environmental debt will be paid. But are we really listening? In addition to a climate-change problem, we seem to have an attention problem. We are distracted by things small and large, from our everydayness to the pandemic to potential nuclear war. There’s always something to pull our attention away from taking serious action around climate change.
Maybe we already do our part. We recycle, walk rather than drive - when possible - grow food, plant trees and vote with our wallet by doing business with like-minded companies. But we’re missing the grand gesture. We’re not putting our heads together with other governments, communities and businesses to transition to clean energy and reach net-zero emissions as soon as humanly possible, and protect natural habits that store living carbon. At least, we’re not doing it in earnest. The planet is showing us, it’s not enough. Not yet, anyway.
It’s easy to give up hope. Or be apathetic. Or as in the 2021 apocalyptic black comedy film “Don’t Look Up,” (Spoiler alert!) if a comet is hurling toward the Earth and there’s no way out, just make a nice meal for loved ones and crack open a gorgeous bottle of wine.
Reversing climate change is like reversing pollution. It takes changed behavior. A shift in attitude. It means making a commitment to act on our values, which generally improves our lives anyway.
But we’re not here to preach. We’re doing our own self-examination while writing this editorial. Maybe that’s what it takes, continual reflection on purposeful actions that could move the needle toward reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Educating ourselves and sharing knowledge.
With climate change, we’d like to think the same message on eliminating pollution from the Crying Indian Ad is relevant today. “People can stop it.”
