In June 1989, five months after running aground and spilling its cargo in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, the Exxon Valdez limped home to San Diego, still leaking a trail of oil.

I went down to the shipyard where it was docked, but the public wasn’t allowed in close and there wasn’t much to see. The true costs of the American car culture are often hidden from view. 

Earth Day is now observed in more than 180 countries. Which makes sense when you think about it. Humanity has many religions and nations, but so far only one planet.

The first Earth Day was a response to a massive oil spill near Santa Barbara, twenty years before the Exxon Valdez disaster. Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, an early opponent of the Vietnam War, toured the California coastline in the aftermath of the spill, and thought that the energy of the anti-war protests could be brought to bear on environmental issues. 

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