The History of Earth Day
April 21, 2011
Earth day was founded by Senator Gaylord Nelson, a Democrat from Wisconsin and considered a leader in the modern environmental movements. Earth day originated as a result of the need to tackle issues such as industrial pollution that caused the earth to be at risk. After gaining inspiration from some anti Vietnam War demonstrations taking place around the U.S. at college campuses, The concept of Earth Day was announced by Senator Nelson in 1969 at a conference in Seattle in which he encouraged the nation to get involved and gave the American people a forum in which to express their concerns about what was taking place in their atmosphere, lakes, rivers, and land.
The response to Earth Day was significant in that the wire service transmitted the story from one coast to the next. Telephone inquires letters and telegrams flooded in from all across the country. A young activist named Dennis Hayes, who had participated as Stanford University’s Student President, was given the position as the coordinator of Earth Day and worked along side the large team of volunteer students and Nelson’s Senate office staff members to organize the project. Senator Nelson gave the explanation that Earth Day was successful as a result of a grassroots level spontaneous response to the situation. Nelson also exclaimed that the organization actually organized itself with the thousands of local communities, schools and more than 20 million demonstrators participating.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Rallies were held on April 22nd in Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and almost every American city. Mayor John Lindsay of New York alongside actors Ali McGraw and Paul Newman spoke at a Union Square and closed off portions of Fifth Avenue to oncoming traffic for a few hours. Thousands of people listened to speeches in Washington D.C and Congress recessed so members could talk with constituents at the events of Earth Day.
Important Developments Following Earth Day Results
The events that took place on the first Earth Day raised awareness of issues involving the environment that impacted public perceptions. There were public opinion polls that indicated there had been a change, as a result of the Earth Day events of 1970, in national priorities. In May of 1971 as public opinion polls were taken about 25% of the United States public indicated that a major goal was environmental protection, which was a 2,500% rise from that of 1969.
During some periods following the origination of Earth Day some significant pieces of environmental legislation was passed during the 1970s which included the Reclamation Act, the Surface Mining Control, the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Water Quality Improvement Act and the Clean Air Act. The establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency was also a key development in the 1970s which task was to safeguard the natural environment-land, water and air, and protect human health. According to the EPA.gov, Prior this agency was established; there was task force in place by the federal government in attacking pollutants that harmed the environment or human health.
Celebrations have continued to grown since 1970 and in 1990 the day reached global level with more than 200 million people that represented more than 140 nations participating in the event. There was a huge increase in the recycling efforts all across the world as a result of the 1990 Earth Day event that also helped raise public awareness and led to much of the success of the United Nations Summit of 1992 in Rio de Janeiro. The main focus of the Earth Day of 2000 was on clean energy and involved 5,000 environmental groups, 184 countries, and hundreds of millions of people participating. Currently, the Earth Day Network teams up with more that 17,000 organizations and partners in 174 countries. Earth Day Events are now known as one of the biggest secular civic events world-wide with over 1 billion people involved in the day’s events.
Earth Day Events and Ideas
Everyone can get involved in Earth day by taking part in things such as clean up projects to concerts. The Earth Day Network gives recommendations for people to look online for Earth Day listing or calling local listings for information.
Earth Day events such as tree planting projects, essays on the environment and a recycling fair are all events that encompass this day in order to get the awareness of cleaning up the environment an making the Earth a better place in which to live.
Individuals can also be “green volunteers” where opportunities such as single day projects in which groups or teams go out and clean up the community, river or beaches or there are instances where individuals donate their time regularly to environmental groups. Additional ideas can be found under the subject of Earth Day on the United States government opportunity lists.
