HOW IT STARTED:
Many of the CBS News technicians and producers thought that Cronkite was going a little gaga with his “Can the World Be Saved?” obsession. Whenever Cronkite ran an ecology story, the “Earthrise” graphic would appear behind him, with Bonn’s hand holding the planet. CBS Evening News director Ritchie Mutchler would regularly bark to his assistant, “We’ll need the hand job tonight!” To CBS News correspondent Bob Schieffer, it was akin to “Quiet on the set!” Feeling that he was being mocked, Cronkite, usually unflappable, called Mutchler aside. “Uhmm, could we call that thing something else?” he asked. “Every time I hear you call it that, my mind sort of wanders.”
At Cronkite’s insistence, CBS News played a major role in publicizing the first Earth Day observed across the United States, on April 22, 1970 (it also happened to be his son Chip’s birthday). Not only did Cronkite build up Earth Day on his nightly broadcast, but he anchored a CBS News Special Report from 10:00 to 11:00 p.m. EST on that historic day when twenty million Americans launched the Green movement. He began “Earth Day: A Question of Survival” with [Barry] Commoner, a Washington University biology professor who in February had been dubbed “the Paul Revere of Ecology” by Time magazine.
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CBS Evening News won an Emmy Award for its “Can the World Be Saved?” segments. After that, all CBS reporters were anxious for environmental assignments; the airing of occasional “Can the World Be Saved?” segments lasted until 1980. By the twenty-first century, Earth Day had grown into an unofficial calendar holiday almost like Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day. To commemorate its twentieth anniversary, the René Dubos Center for Human Environment presented Cronkite with its prestigious Only One Earth Award; his citation touted his promotion of environmental literacy. It was an honor he treasured. At the New York Hilton gala, more than one thousand environmentally minded citizens stood up to toast the man who helped put Earth Day and the New Environmentalism on the TV media map.
—Douglas Brinkley, Cronkite, 2012.
How It’s Going: Watch this CNN analyst discover how little we all care about climate change.
🚨SHOCK POLL: CNN admits that the American people AREN'T CONCERNED about climate change — Radical activists FAILED to scare citizens.
"Americans AREN'T afraid of climate change!"
"Climate activists have not successfully made the case to the American people!" pic.twitter.com/47u9IzQ8IF
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 10, 2025
—Not the Bee, today.