Cleveland's Party for Socialism and Liberation Held a People's Forum for Earth Day in Public Square
In honor of Earth Day and the rich history of environmental resistance in Cleveland, The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) held a people's forum in the public square on April 22nd. The forum began with Tahm Lytle, a member of PSL, highlighting Cleveland’s role in the creation of Earth Day.
In the years leading up to Earth Day, many Greater Cleveland residents expressed their concerns to Mayor Carl B. Stokes about the blight spreading across the metropolitan area at the hands of industrial corporations. Students of all ages, teachers, and parents sent enough letters expressing their fears about air and water pollution to fill a whole box in the archives at the Western Reserve Historical Society. Just one month before the first Earth Day, Arsenio Hall, American actor and comedian, wrote a letter to Mayor Stokes. As a 9th grade student at Robert H. Jamison High School, Hall and his classmates had been studying pollution. He expressed his frustration that parents wouldn’t acknowledge the dangers of pollution, “We hear most of the parents say ‘pollution couldn’t possibly affect us;’ but it could, and not a single person in Cleveland is safe from it.”
A month later, almost a thousand students marched from Cleveland State University to the Cuyahoga River in “a procession of death.” After catching fire in 1969 and making national headlines, the Cuyahoga River became one of the sparks that lit the fire of the environmental movement in the United States.
While progress has been made in improving air and water quality since the first Earth Day in 1970, that progress is threatened as the Trump Administration moves to roll back the Clean Air and Clean Water Act and dismantle the EPA.
In the early years of Earth Day, environmentalists focused on holding industry accountable for the harm they caused to communities, but in recent years Earth Day has become more about promoting individual actions like recycling, biking to work, composting and reducing ones carbon footprint.
Tahm Lytle wants to refocus Earth Day back to corporate pollution instead of placing climate guilt at the feet of citizens. “Cleveland is not one of the asthma capitals of the world because individuals don't compost their banana peels. Cleveland is one of the asthma capitals of the United States because the powers that be refuse to regulate how industry operates,” Lytle said, “the focus has shifted from corporate and industrial pollution to individuals.”
The rally also highlighted the role of capitalism in the pollution our planet and communities are facing, as well as the environmental degradation caused by the more than 85,000 tons of bombs dropped on Gaza by Israel since October 7th, 2023. “Environmentalism without anti-colonialism is nothing but green-washed genocide,” said Jenna Muhieddine, a Palestinian activist.
The peoples forum ended with attendees breaking off into small groups to discuss the most pressing environmental issues in their communities, ways to come together as a community in climate activism, and how to refocus Earth Day back to corporations and industry.