REFLECTIONS / EARTH DAY 1970-1990 : ‘My real concern isn’t ... Earth Day, but Earth tomorrow.’

Robert Hattoy has his doubts about Earth Day, about “the corporate hype and the mind-numbing media overload of eco-mush” that he believes is trivializing monumental environmental problems.

“The reality is that on April 23, the air will still be polluted, the water will still be unsafe and the oceans will be filled with medical wastes,” the outspoken Sierra Club official said. “Not one thing will have been changed. My real concern isn’t about Earth Day, but Earth tomorrow.”

Hattoy argues that, although a few companies deserve a place on the Earth Day bandwagon, “the others are merely attempting to capitalize on the public’s newest fad.” Simply put, he said, “You can’t paint a chain saw green and say it is good for the forest.”

Hattoy said that he, too, talked a pretty good game when the Sierra Club first hired him eight years ago. Back then, he was no stereotypical Sierra Clubber, munching on trail mix during long weekend hikes. In fact, about all he recalls of Earth Day 20 years ago are “Earth Shoes and marijuana.”

A Democratic Party activist, Hattoy was tapped by the Sierra Club for his political lobbying skills.

“I had an intellectual appreciation for environmental issues, but not an emotional one,” he said. “Since then, the experiences I have had in the wilderness areas of this state have so enriched my life that I’m now no longer just talking about environmental action but feeling it. And if it can happen to me, it can happen to anybody.”

In recent months, Hattoy said, his job of preserving California’s grandeur has become an immensely personal one. It is among the towering redwoods and the vastness of Death Valley where he best remembers friends he has lost to AIDS.

“I feel connected to them when I’m in touch with something so beautiful,” he explained. “The idea of destroying those places now makes me feel like their memory would also be destroyed.”