Santa Barbara’s Earth Day Celebration Over the Years
A massive oil spill from a platform off Santa Barbara’s coastline in 1969 gave rise to the first national Earth Day celebration held on April 22, 1970.
The community-led event was spearheaded by the Community Environmental Council, a grassroots organization that was just taking root. Today, the Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival is held at Alameda Park in downtown Santa Barbara, typically the last or second-to-last weekend in April.
A Brief History of Santa Barbara Earth Day
50+ Years
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1970
the original earth day
The story of Earth Day Festivals can’t be told without the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill. Three million gallons of oil devastated our coastline. Environmental concerns had already been percolating in the zeitgeist and the 1969 spill was a call to action. Enough was enough.
Viewing the Wreckage
Senators Gaylord Nelson and Denis Hayes viewed the Santa Barbara spill and were horrified by the wreckage. Soon after, they made a national call for environment “teach-ins” — similar to the anti-war teach-ins of the day — to elevate the importance of protecting our planet.
A Call to Action
In Santa Barbara, a group of energized young adults with a bunch of books, a small office on Anapamu Street heeded the call and created a non-profit organization called the Community Environmental Council (CEC). Their first action was to organize a Santa Barbara Earth Day event.
CEC organized environmentally-aligned community members and businesses to set up booths on the street and made Santa Barbara’s first Earth Day Festival. It was “a modest affair,” according to former CEC Executive Director Paul Relis, but it was the start of something big.
1970S - 1980s
CEC in action
The 1970 Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival planted a seed of local environmental action. Although we have no record of Earth Day Festivals between 1971 and 1989, the community worked hard to help environmental progress blossom throughout California’s Central Coast. CEC would go on to build Santa Barbara’s first community gardens in the 1970s and advocate for recycling and household waste programs in the 1980s.
1990
Earth day every day
After having lain dormant for almost twenty years, the Santa Barbara Earth Day celebration emerged into a new era. Karen Feeney, then the head of CEC’s Pollution Prevention program, attended a national conference in Washington D.C. Dennis Hayes spoke at the event and echoed the national call for Earth Day events that he and Senator Gaylord Nelson had two decades earlier (see Earth Day 1970). This time, he challenged the crowd to make “Earth Day every day” to bring environmental issues and action out from the shadows and back into the sunlight.
Santa Barbara Earth Day Committee
Karen left the conference inspired and invigorated, returning with a vision to bring the Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival back – bigger, bolder, and refreshed. Karen and colleague Sharyn Main gathered CEC staff and board members, other local environmental organizations and activists to form the Santa Barbara Earth Day Committee. Together, the Committee grew the modest street fair of 1970 into a large-scale community event.
The Scene
Earth Day 1990 was at Santa Barbara City College and headlined by musicians Jackson Browne, Kenny Loggins and Jim Messina. Environmental leaders and politicians, including Senator Gary K. Hart, spoke about concerns for the planet, and participants at over 120 booths offered information and actions for protecting our global ecosystem. In a true festival scene, messages resounded about the threats of pollution, deforestation and species decline. It was a huge celebration and call for environmental action that set the tone for Santa Barbara Earth Day.
1991 -1994
Gatherings for change
The Santa Barbara Earth Day Committee had their hands full building local environmental change. Instead of putting on large-scale festivals during these years, they held small gatherings in different locations around Santa Barbara, including in De La Guerra Plaza just off of State Street.
1995
REVITALIZING THE EVENT
It was the 25th Anniversary of the first Earth Day celebration, and the Santa Barbara Earth Day Committee came back together to put on another massive Earth Day Festival. In many ways, it recreated the 1990 event; it was held at Santa Barbara City College, featured big musical performances like Kenny Loggins and Jackson Browne, centered on rousing environmental speeches, and assembled many community organizations. Youth voices and kids’ activities were included for the first time.
1996 -1999
earth day moves downtown
In 1996, the Earth Day Committee phased as the entity that organized the event, and CEC stepped in. CEC experimented with holding the event on State Street and Anapamu Street in front of the Museum of Art and Library. The festival featured a traveling educational exhibit called Garbage and All That Trash.
In the years 1997-1999, the one-day festival moved back to De La Guerra Plaza with about 100 exhibitor booths, live music, and food vendors.
2000
A grander event
As we celebrated the 30th Earth Day Festival Anniversary and a new millennium, we also welcomed a grander Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival. The huge community gathering was situated on Santa Barbara City College’s West Campus lawn. The Santa Barbara Bowl partnered with CEC and built a giant stage for performances and speakers, including Singer Kenny Loggins, Jackson Browne, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Dishwalla, and James Cameron.
Launching the Santa Barbara Green Car Show
It was the first Santa Barbara Green Car Show that featured a single Honda Insight, which a local Santa Barbarian proudly showed off and allowed people to test drive. Homemade biodiesel made of would-be discarded bacon grease was also on display as a non-extractive fuel substitute. At the time, these advancements were groundbreaking and set a foundation for the explosion of low-carbon transportation options that would follow.
2001 -2008
a community staple
In 2001, the festival moved from Santa Barbara City College to the Sunken Gardens of the iconic Santa Barbara Courthouse.
Introducing the Green Car Show
These years, the festival continued to grow and become a staple community event. As electric vehicles became more widely available, the popularity and size of the Green Car Show grew. The festival continued to attract popular musicians, including Santa Barbara locals Jack Johnson and Glen Phillips of Toad the Wet Sprocket, who brought their lyrical messages of environmental action to the main stage.
Community Partnerships
Community partnerships sprung up, as well. In 2007,the UC Santa Barbara Library’s UCSB Reads program shared a selection from Elizabeth Kolbert’s “Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change” about global warming.
2009-2019
focus on climate change
Another wave of change rippled throughout the Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival starting in 2009. We introduced the Environmental Hero Award, an annual award granted to an individual or organization who has made significant contributions to the environmental movement.
Honoring Inspiring Environmental Heroes
Inspiring Environmental Heroes were honored during each festival, from Actress and Activist Daryl Hannah (2011), to Environmental Justice Advocate Van Jones (2013), to 350.org Founder Bill McKibben (2015), and Author Suzy Amis Cameron (2019).
A Focus on Climate Change
A common theme emerged and crystallized: the climate crisis. Solutions offered by exhibitors and speakers emphasized both the systemic and individual actions needed to reverse climate change and bring about a more climate-resilient future.
More People, More Days, More Climate Action
The event attracted people from all over California Central Coast to celebrate, learn, and take action together. The historic Sunken Gardens could no longer contain the celebration, and the festival moved a few blocks over to Alameda Park. The following year, an additional day was added to make it a full weekend celebration. Over the next nine years, festival attendance continued to grow and the footprint of the event expanded from one square-block of Alameda Park to include Santa Barbara Street between Micheltorena and Sola Streets and a portion of the second block of the park.
March for Science
In 2017, 5,000 people marched through the streets of Santa Barbara in the ‘March for Science’ to encourage decision makers to listen to scientists about the climate crisis. The march culminated at the Earth Day event, where marchers hung their signs on a big wall for all to see.
By 2019, the festival had reached new heights. A special Friday night concert was held in addition to the weekend of back-to-back musical performances, The Green Car Show became one of the largest on the West Coast, and the park held more than 200 exhibitors. That year, about 35,000 environmentally conscious individuals attended the Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival.
Farm-to-Table
In 2010, local food system advocates developed the first harvest-to-home section of the festival, highlighting local food and farming organizations. Gradually, the food court was reimagined to include vendors who source locally grown, climate-friendly foods in the Homegrown Roots Zone. In 2014, a 150-person farm-to-table dinner was set up in front of the main stage on Saturday night to celebrate local food producers and the role they play in the health of our planet.
2020 -2021
a virtual experience
The COVID-19 pandemic affected the world in profound ways, including how environmental activists show up in the community with one another.
Welcoming Global Audience
In 2020, thousands of people from all over the world tuned in to a virtual Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival to celebrate environmental action and lift up the work that still needed to be done. Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Actor Jeff Bridges, and Former Vice President Al Gore inspired attendees with messages of hope about the future of the planet. With COVID, we were seeing in real-time the positive effects of our reduced impact on the environment.
Climate Leadership Summit
The following year, nearly 10,000 tuned into the live streamed event that highlighted the theme of climate leadership. Responding to the need for leaders, youth, and to connect and collaborate on climate action, the Climate Leadership Summit gathered climate activists and social change agents to share their work, circulate ideas, and accelerate progress.
Arts-Based Activism
The community also recognized the power of art-based activism, and CEC, The Arts Fund, Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, Paseo Nuevo, and Santa Barbara BCycle sponsored an Earth Day Mural installation to highlight the elements of our natural system important to our community. Adriana Arriaga and Claudia Borfiga created “Nurture our Mother”, a bright pop art mural with images of 805 nature that highlight the interconnectedness of our shared ecosystem and pays homage to Arriaga’s Xicana identity.
2022
gathering again
In 2022, the festival returned in-person as a one-day event at the historic Arlington Theatre. Speakers took the stage, climate-centric films were screened, and the community gathered again to reconnect around climate action. Dozens of local organizations set up booths in the theater’s courtyard, and the Green Car Show set up along State Street in front of the theater.
CEC CEO Sigrid Wright Named Congressional Woman of the Year
To continue to push forward climate action on California’s Central Coast, the in-person Climate Leadership Summit gathered youth activists and seasoned climate leaders to advance solutions. CEC’s climate leadership was recognized during the event, as CEC CEO Sigrid Wright was presented the Congressional Woman of the Year Award by U.S. Representative Salud Carbajal for her incredible work and positive impact. To round out the event, another Earth Day Mural installation featured local artist Maria Arroyo’s depiction of a warrior bird that looks over native Central Coast flora and fauna.
2023-present
return to alameda park
In 2023, the Festival returned to Alameda Park with 22,000 attendees. A shared excitement to once again celebrate alongside fellow community members was palpable, as was the urgent call to increase intersectional climate and social justice action. The need to equitably reduce climate emissions and build Central Coast climate resilience was shown throughout the event.
A World Without Fossil Fuels
The Climate Action Stage featured stirring presentations and discussions, including a presentation on the science and impacts of climate and a climate justice panel event that reflected on the kind of social movement needed for a world without fossil fuels. Actress and Activist Jane Fonda presented the Environmental Hero Awards to Nalleli Cobo, co-founder of People Not Pozos, and Cesar Aguirre, Oil and Gas Director for the Central California Environmental Justice Network and co-founder of California Youth vs. Big Oil.
