No greenwash posts today. While it’s easy to be cynical about the slow pace of environmental progress and the prevalence of greenwash, an article in this month’s Solar Today about the first Earth Day provides cause for hope. In “Earth Day at 40: Roots of a Solar Advocate,” Dennis Hayes shares how the first Earth Day “ushered in an era of dramatic environmental progress” including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and on and on.

Let’s pause today to celebrate the progress we’ve made over the past 40 years, and to recommit ourselves to realizing Hayes’ vision of “a solar-powered, ecologically healthy, ethically just, carbon-neutral civilization.”