The following is an excerpt from the newly released In Love with Earth, written by Marc McGinnes, cofounder of the Community Environmental Council, the Environmental Defense Center, the Peaceful Resolutions Institute, and the Community Mediation Council, and a longtime faculty member of the Environmental Studies Program at UCSB.
In early March of 1969, l got a phone call that set my life on a new course.
I was in my law office in San Francisco. A case file lay open on my desk, and I held my Dictaphone, just about to record some notes, when my secretary buzzed over the intercom, “There’s a [Rep.] Pete McCloskey from Washington, D.C., on the line for you.” I put down the recorder, reached for the telephone and heard Pete say, “Marc, have you heard about this oil platform blowout in Santa Barbara?”