A look back at early Earth Day activism in Kansas City
Every April since 1970, people around the world have been celebrating Earth Day with parades, festivals, and events to raise awareness for environmental issues and to teach future generations to protect our planet.
From organizing for the inaugural event on April 22, 1970, to the community sculpture events in the early nineties, Kansas City has its own history of Earth Day events.
Here’s a look back at Earth Day events that began in 1989 led by local organization, Heartland All Species Project.
The events combined art and science to raise awareness about ecological issues, and gathered thousands of Kansas Citians in celebration, costume, and activism.
Each event featured a massive community sculpture that repurposed waste to tell a story. Here are photos of those sculptures that were taken over 30 years ago during the month of April. Event organizers Marty Kraft and Stan Slaughter reflect on these impressive community gatherings.
Phantom Forest Sculpture – 1989
The 1989 sculpture raised awareness about trees. At this time, there was no curbside paper recycling in the city and newspapers did not use recycled paper content. They calculated how many 30-year pine trees were needed to produce one issue of the Kansas City Star’s Sunday newspaper, and planned to recreate a forest of the estimated 1,800 trees as the Phantom Forest sculpture. They worked with a survey company to arrange the 1,800 dots in the form of a 430-foot long, 180-foot wide pine tree.
The sculpture was made with newspapers packaged in brown paper sacks that were gathered by community members and local organizations. Volunteers assembled the tree at Theis Park (then Volker Park) over two days. The All Species Parade gathered on a Saturday morning to celebrate the sculpture.
This sculpture project had a big impact on Kraft.
“It took so many people to bring their newspapers to build the sculpture,” Kraft said. “The confusion and necessity to join together to solve the problems, community formed.”
At the end of the event, they were able to sell the 150,000 pounds of newspaper used during the event. The paper was recycled and used for insulation. The proceeds were donated to preserve and expand a cloud forest preserve in Costa Rica. The project was awarded recognition from the U.N. Environmental Project.
Heart of the Heartland Sculpture – 1990
1990 marked the 20th anniversary of Earth Day, and it was a widely celebrated global event. In Kansas City, the Heartland All Species Project organized the Heart of the Heartland Earth 150-foot diameter sculpture.
A coalition of community groups constructed the sculpture. It was made with newspapers in grocery bags for the outlines and the Rocky Mountains, red Coke cans for the heart, blue laundry detergent bottles for the rivers and lakes, milk jugs for the arctic snow, and blue mesh with aluminum cans for the ocean.
The sculpture was built on a Friday, and the All Species Parade was held on Saturday with 3,000 people parading through the Country Club Plaza in costume. The organizers opened an arts studio in the Crossroads for volunteers to create masks and costumes months before the event.
“People were charged to walk a mile in your favorite animal’s shoes,” Slaughter said. “Some schools came to the parade as an ecosystem. For example, an entire class came as a coral reef. We had a drum band lead the parade and the spirit was exulting.”
The parade concluded in the heart space around the globe, showing love for the earth.
Energy Independence Sculpture – 1991
The 1991 sculpture reflected on the Gulf War, and the discussions about crude oil and energy independence. The Energy Independence sculpture celebrated energy from the sun by recreating a solar collector.
During the celebration, people in costume stood in the sun holding red and yellow paper signs, and also ran through the solar collector wires creating the energy that powered the system.
The event featured a parade and a giant puppet play titled, “We’re off to see the lizard” about how the answers to our problems can be found in nature.
The organizers were inspired to use puppets after witnessing the excitement of other puppet theaters and events in the U.S.
“They instilled awe and awe can open a closed person to something different,” Kraft said. “Something better can be formed in this openness and the support of community can help it persist.”
Turtle Island Sculpture – 1992
1992 marked the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in North America. The Turtle Island sculpture and a puppet play highlighted “The World on the Turtle’s Back,” the creation story of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy people.
The Heartland All Species Project produced an even bigger puppet play for this event with five 15-foot tall puppets and a cast of 140 volunteer puppeteers.
In reflecting on the committed volunteers, Kraft remarked that joy and passion was their main energy.
“We had a team of people who really got it. They were passionate about shifting our culture that they put in the time. It wasn’t a sacrifice. It was a joyful endeavor.”
Reflecting on their activism
These volunteer-led events ended, but the organizers are still environmental educators today.
“Be the change. We’re the ones we’ve been waiting for,” Slaughter said. “Some tremendous actions and progress happened because people stepped up. We are the best we have and it’s enough.”
Photos used with permission from Marty Kraft and Stan Slaughter.
The post From the Archives: Earth Day in KC appeared first on Greenability.
Green Living
Best of Sustainability In Your Ear: Dandelion Energy CEO Dan Yates On How Geothermal Leasing Could Transform Home Heating and Cooling
Read a transcript of this episode. Subscribe to receive transcripts.
Return to one of our most compelling interviews of 2025. Amazingly, the same Congressional bill that gutted residential clean energy tax credits also led to a major breakthrough in financing home geothermal systems. Dan Yates, CEO of Dandelion Energy, explains how the Big, Beautiful Bill introduced changes that, for the first time, allow third-party leasing of residential geothermal systems. He shares why this policy change could help ground-source heat pumps grow the way leasing helped rooftop solar. Geothermal heating and cooling is four times more efficient than a furnace and twice as efficient as air-source heat pumps. Yet only about 1% of U.S. homes use it because the upfront costs for new geothermal systems have ranged from $20,000 to $31,000. The new leasing model means new homeowners can get geothermal systems for just $10 to $40 per month on a 20-year lease, which is usually far less than what they save on energy.
- Subscribe to Sustainability In Your Ear on iTunes
- Follow Sustainability In Your Ear on Spreaker, iHeartRadio, or YouTube
Editor’s Note: This episode originally aired on December 29, 2025.
The post Best of Sustainability In Your Ear: Dandelion Energy CEO Dan Yates On How Geothermal Leasing Could Transform Home Heating and Cooling appeared first on Earth911.
https://earth911.com/podcast/sustainability-in-your-ear-dandelion-energy-ceo-dan-yates-on-how-geothermal-leasing-could-transform-home-heating-and-cooling/
The first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970 — 56 years ago — and, goodness, how the world has changed since then. We’ve come a long way since the days of burning our trash and pumping our gas guzzlers with leaded gasoline. In honor of those 56 years, here are 56 important changes and milestones since the first Earth Day.
Legislation
The U.S. government has led much of the environmental charge, starting with the implementation of the EPA (1) in July 1970. Later that year, the Clean Air Act (2) targeted air pollutants, followed by the Clean Water Act (3) in 1972 and the Endangered Species Act (4) in 1973.
Some lesser-known national laws included the Safe Water Drinking Act (5) in 1974, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (6) in 1976, the Toxic Substances Control Act (7) in 1976, the National Energy Act (8) in 1978, and the Medical Waste Tracking Act (9) in 1988.
In some cases, states have led the charge. Oregon passed the first bottle bill (10) in 1971, Minnesota’s Clean Indoor Air Act (11) was the first law to restrict smoking in public places (1975), and Massachusetts required low-flush toilets (12) for construction and remodeling in 1988.
Green Innovations: The Early Years
In order to comply with all the laws from the 1970s, we needed new technology to ensure consumers could adhere to the new standards. Consider:
- The “Crying Indian” PSA debuts in 1971 (13)
- Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) gets banned in 1972 (14)
- The energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulb launches in 1973 (15)
- Cars begin displaying fuel economy labels in the mid-1970s (16)
- In 1975, all cars are manufactured with catalytic converters to limit exhaust emissions (17)
- Chlorofluorocarbons are banned from aerosol cans starting in 1978 (18)
- The first curbside recycling program begins in New Jersey in 1980 (19)
- In 1986, McDonald’s switches from foam to paper food containers (20)
- Mercury is removed from latex paint in 1990, providing a viable alternative to banned lead paint (21)
- Earth911 launches the first U.S. recycling directory in 1991 (22)
- Energy Star certification debuts in 1992 for appliances and electronics (23)
- The U.S. Green Building Council begins in 1993 (24)
The Political Movement
The Green Party (25) launched in 1984, which was just the beginning of green issues entering the mainstream. One Percent for the Planet (26) was founded in 2002 to challenge businesses to donate to environmental causes, and the ISO 14001 standard (27) established environmental management. Companies are now facing pressure to allow employee telecommuting (28).
Things really developed after the release of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (29) in 2006. NBC debuted Green Week (30) in 2007. Carbon offsets (31) alleviated corporate green guilt. Bisphenol A (32) made us all question plastic purchases. Hybrid vehicles (33) generated tax credits and gas savings. Plastic bag bans gave rise to a reusable bag (34) craze. Fracking (35) and the Dakota Access Pipeline (36) were two of the most hotly contested news stories of the decade, at least until the 2016 election.
Green Tech: The Next Wave
In the past 10 years, emerging green tech has made eco-friendly a way of life, including:
- LED light bulbs (37)
- Portable solar panels on backpacks and watches (38)
- Plant-based plastics (39)
- Motion sensor lighting (40)
- Faucets with automatic shut-off (41)
- Low volatile organic compound (VOC) paint (42)
- Recycled plastic clothing (43)
- Ride-sharing mobile applications (44)
- Natural cleaning products (45)
- Biodiesel engine vehicles (46)
- Food waste composting (47)
- Portable air purifiers (48)
- Europe’s Green Deal introduced global recyclables shipping regulations to reduce pollution in low-income nations (49)
- Corporate borrowers headed toward $500 billion in bond financings for the renewables transition (50)
- President Biden rejoins the Paris Climate Accord on his first day in office. (51)
The Latest Five: 2022–2026
The pace of innovation has not slowed. Five more milestones have reshaped the environmental landscape since that 51st Earth Day:
- The Inflation Reduction Act (52), signed into law in August 2022, became the largest climate investment in U.S. history, directing roughly $370 billion toward clean energy tax credits, EV incentives, methane reduction, and domestic clean manufacturing. Analysts projected it will drive more than $4 trillion in cumulative capital investment over a decade and put the U.S. on track for a 40% emissions reduction by 2030. Sadly, many of its key provisions have been defunded or eliminated by the Trump Administration.
- The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (53), adopted by 188 governments in December 2022, set the most ambitious biodiversity protection commitment in history. Its headline “30×30” target calls for conserving 30% of the planet’s land, freshwater, and ocean areas by 2030, a goal that would require doubling current protected land coverage and quadrupling marine protections.
- America’s first commercial direct air capture plant (54), opened by Heirloom Carbon Technologies in Tracy, California in November 2023, marked the arrival of atmospheric carbon removal at commercial scale on U.S. soil. The plant uses limestone to absorb CO₂ directly from the air, with the captured carbon injected into concrete for permanent storage. In May 2024, Climeworks activated the world’s largest direct air capture facility, the Mammoth plant in Iceland, with a design capacity to remove 36,000 tons of CO₂ per year.
- Solid-state batteries (55), a next-generation alternative to conventional lithium-ion technology, moved from laboratory promise toward commercial reality between 2022 and 2026. Unlike liquid-electrolyte batteries, solid-state versions are less flammable, achieve higher energy density, and degrade more slowly. In early 2025, Mercedes-Benz began road-testing a prototype EV powered by a lithium-metal solid-state cell that extended driving range 25% over comparable liquid-battery models. Multiple automakers and cell manufacturers now target commercial production between 2027 and 2030.
- Perovskite and tandem solar cells (56), a new photovoltaic technology that pairs conventional silicon with thin perovskite layers, pushed solar efficiency into territory once considered theoretical. By 2024, tandem cells in laboratory settings exceeded 34% efficiency — well above the roughly 22% ceiling of standard silicon panels only a few years ago. manufacturers in Asia and Europe began scaling pilot production lines. Because perovskite cells can be printed on flexible substrates, they open the door to solar surfaces on buildings, vehicles, and everyday objects that conventional panels cannot reach.
The past 56 years have been huge when it comes to saving the environment. Expect more to come, including a resurgent EV industry, nuclear fusion, regenerative agriculture, restorative forestry, and more, as costs and the cool factor improve.
Editor’s Note: Originally published on April 18, 2018, this article was most recently updated in April 2026.
The post 56 Environmental Innovations in the 56 Years Since Earth Day Began appeared first on Earth911.
https://earth911.com/eco-tech/eco-friendly-innovations/
This week’s quotation is from Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd president of the United States: “A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.”
Earth911 inspiration posters: Post them and share your desire to help people think of the planet first, every day. Click the poster to get a larger image.
The post Earth911 Inspiration: Forests Are the Lungs of Our Land appeared first on Earth911.
https://earth911.com/inspire/earth911-inspiration-forests-are-lungs-of-land/
-
Climate Change8 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases8 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Bill Discounting Climate Change in Florida’s Energy Policy Awaits DeSantis’ Approval
-
Climate Change2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change Videos2 years ago
The toxic gas flares fuelling Nigeria’s climate change – BBC News
-
Renewable Energy6 months agoSending Progressive Philanthropist George Soros to Prison?
-
Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits