What’s in a word?
For the past decade, green—the word and color—has been synonymous with environmental practices: eco-friendly products are either colored green or have the word stamped on the label; offices of sustainability across the nation have green in their logo; environmental organizations and political parties like Go Green Alliance and Green Party USA are prevalent in activism; the phrase “go green” is so commonplace that “greenies” now represent “environmentalists.” This hasn’t always been the case.
The word green has had several different connotations in the English language that changed with the cultural contexts. Our sense of green representing sickness comes from the ancient Greek word “chloros,” meaning a combination of green and pale and its use in ancient practices. It came into cultural context based on the color of people’s complexions. Now, due to the rarity of green complexions, this is an association that is least likely to come to mind, but we do still worry that someone may be ill if they look too pale.
More recently green is associated with greed. This comes primarily from the U.S. “greenback” or dollar bill. Although it is an American form of currency, its cultural significance has infiltrated most of the world through films, television and exchange rates. The infamous Michael Douglas character, Gordon Gekko in Wall Street said, “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” That was in the Reaganomics era, but with the recent economic downfall still resonating throughout society; very few people still agree that greed is in fact good.
So how and why did the environmental movement come to adopt green as its color and slogan? The logo of the first Earth Day in 1970 was blue, yellow, and red—not green.
“The green movement wanted to capitalize on the positive associations with the word green,” says Etymologist Charles Doyle.
Derived from the same root of the word “grow,” green represents nature in nearly every culture, because it is the primary color in almost all plants. Some of the earliest uses of the word are direct references to plants.
Greenness is the most salient characteristic of a healthy environment—one that is growing, thriving, fresh. Naturally it would come to symbolize a movement established on protecting the health of the environment by keeping it alive.
Although the first Earth Day logo didn’t contain much green, activists carried a green and white flag that some consider symbolic of the environmental movement. It’s still hanging in the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. That same year, Charles Reich talked of the “Greening of America” in his book of the same name. A year later, in 1971, a little group named Don’t Make a Wave Committee adopted a new name from one of its protest ships, Greenpeace.
No one person coined the term green in reference to environmentalism. Green as a movement simply just came into being; it came to represent a goal towards a rejuvenation or renewal of the modern concrete jungle, a sustainable future. Just as activists carried that green and white flag during the first Earth Day rally, activists at next year’s rally will carry the green tradition in hopes of reaching its goal of “A Billion Acts of Green.”
Major Moments in the Green Movement:
June 1962: Silent Spring published
Fall 1968: The Whole Earth Catalog first issue published
December 24, 1968: photo of Earth rising over the moon released to public; Earthrise becomes iconic image of the environmental movement
January 28, 1969: Santa Barbara oil well spill
April 22, 1970: First Earth Day; 20 million people participate; largest demonstration in national history
July 9, 1970: Environmental Protection Agency established by Nixon
1971-1974: passage of the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, Safe Drinking Water Act
1972: Environmental Activist organization, Greenpeace is established
December 31, 1972: US government bans DDT
December 28, 1973: Congress passes Endangered Species Act
July 1978: Love Canal Disaster
March 28, 1979: Three Mile Island disaster
June 20, 1979: Carter has solar powered water-heating panels installed on White House roof
December 11, 1980: Congress passes Superfund legislation
February 17, 1981: Reagan beings removal of solar-powered water-heating panels from White House roof
1986: Reagan removed the last solar water heating panels from White House roof
March 24, 1989: Exxon Valdez oil spill
April 22, 1990: 20th anniversary of Earth Day goes global with rallies held in Rio de Janiero, Brazil
1994: Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America
February 26, 2005: The Kyoto protocol comes into effect.
2006: An Inconvenient Truth released
By Chelsey Willis
