Eugenie Lewis was part of the first-ever Earth Day celebration in 1970. With a group of other students, she organized an environmental teach-in at her school.
52 years later, Lewis is still educating and engaging her community around environmental issues. This Earth Week is no exception. Lewis is taking part in the Earth Day Fight For Our Future mobilization, in which people across the country take action to demand Congress and the Biden administration take bold action to address the climate crisis at the scale and speed necessary.
"We passed a lot of legislation back then," said Lewis, reflecting on the Clean Air and Water Acts. "But there’s still much more to be done to protect the earth and all living things. Congress has still not passed major climate legislation."
As a leader in the Sierra Club and the Climate Reality Project, Lewis is well-acquainted with the urgency of the climate crisis. And from her experience at the first Earth Day, she's well-aware of the need for collective action to address our climate and justice crises: "When we are alone with the climate crisis, there is potential for despair," she says. "However, when we work together as a community and learn, we get more done and support one another at the same time."
Through the Climate Reality Project, Lewis gives presentations to LA high school students and others about the scope of the problem. She’s also worked with the Sierra Club to learn and take action around the climate crisis. This Earth Day, she’s stepping up to host two events at farmer’s markets where people can make posters calling for ambitious climate action. ‘
It’s fitting that Lewis is hosting her events at farmer’s markets, since her daughter works with them – and it was conversations with her children that reengaged her with environmental activism a few years ago. While she’d loved nature since her youth in Minnesota, she’d put environmental work aside as she pursued a career in public health and later, social work. Then, she started talking with her children about their fears for the future on a climate-changed planet.
"It was a wake-up call," Lewis said.
Lewis came to realize that to combat the climate crisis, we need legislation at all levels – but especially on the federal level, where change can reverberate through the whole country. "We gotta do it now," she says, while we have a base of support in Congress. "It’s such a massive problem, and we need everyone to get involved."