Earth Day

The History of Earth Day | Earth Day Network

Each year, Earth Day—April 22—marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970.

The height of counterculture in the United States, 1970 brought the death of Jimi Hendrix, the last Beatles album, and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” War raged in Vietnam and students nationwide overwhelmingly opposed it.

At the time, Americans were slurping leaded gas through massive V8 sedans. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. “Environment” was a word that appeared more often in spelling bees than on the evening news.

Although mainstream America largely remained oblivious to environmental concerns, the stage had been set for change by the publication of Rachel Carson’s New York Times bestseller Silent Spring in 1962.  The book represented a watershed moment, selling more than 500,000 copies in 24 countries, and beginning to raise public awareness and concern for living organisms, the environment and links between pollution and public health.

Earth Day 1970 gave voice to that emerging consciousness, channeling the energy of the anti-war protest movement and putting environmental concerns on the front page.

The Idea

The idea for a national day to focus on the environment came to Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, after witnessing the ravages of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. Inspired by the student anti-war movement, he realized that if he could infuse that energy with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution, it would force environmental protection onto the national political agenda. Senator Nelson announced the idea for a “national teach-in on the environment” to the national media; persuaded Pete McCloskey, a conservation-minded Republican Congressman, to serve as his co-chair; and recruited Denis Hayes from Harvard as national coordinator. Hayes built a national staff of 85 to promote events across the land. April 22, falling between Spring Break and Final Exams, was selected as the date.

On April 22,1970, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values.

Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, city slickers and farmers, tycoons and labor leaders. By the end of that year, the first Earth Day had led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts. “It was a gamble,” Gaylord recalled, “but it worked.”

As 1990 approached, a group of environmental leaders asked Denis Hayes to organize another big campaign. This time, Earth Day went global, mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting environmental issues onto the world stage. Earth Day 1990 gave a huge boost to recycling efforts worldwide and helped pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. It also prompted President Bill Clinton to award Senator Nelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1995)—the highest honor given to civilians in the United States—for his role as Earth Day founder.

Earth Day Today

As the millennium approached, Hayes agreed to spearhead another campaign, this time focused on global warming and a push for clean energy. With 5,000 environmental groups in a record 184 countries reaching out to hundreds of millions of people, Earth Day 2000 combined the big-picture feistiness of the first Earth Day with the international grassroots activism of Earth Day 1990. Earth Day 2000 used the power of the Internet to organize activists, but also featured a drum chain that traveled from village to village in Gabon, Africa. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, DC for a First Amendment Rally. Earth Day 2000 sent world leaders the loud and clear message that citizens around the world wanted quick and decisive action on global warming and clean energy.

Much like 1970, Earth Day 2010 came at a time of great challenge for the environmental community. Climate change deniers, well-funded oil lobbyists, reticent politicians, a disinterested public, and a divided environmental community all contributed to the narrative—cynicism versus activism. Despite these challenges, Earth Day prevailed and Earth Day Network reestablished Earth Day as a relevant, powerful focal point. Earth Day Network brought 250,000 people to the National Mall for a Climate Rally, launched the world’s largest environmental service project—A Billion Acts of Green®–introduced a global tree planting initiative that has since grown into The Canopy Project, and engaged 22,000 partners in 192 countries in observing Earth Day.

Earth Day had reached into its current status as the largest secular observance in the world, celebrated by more than a billion people every year, and a day of action that changes human behavior and provokes policy changes.

Today, the fight for a clean environment continues with increasing urgency, as the ravages of climate change become more manifest every day. We invite you to be a part of Earth Day and help write many more chapters—struggles and victories—into the Earth Day book.

7 Earth Day Facts That Will Inspire You To Make A Difference This Year

Earth Day is a magical day, where we make a point to stop being totally lazy and actually throw our soda cans in the correct bin. While this day was incredibly fun when we were kids, it's nice to know that big Earth Day events still happen every year on April 22 — and since helping keep our planet in tip-top shape is super important (and something we should be doing daily, of course), it's probably good to brush up on our knowledge with a few thought-provoking Earth Day facts that'll make you well aware of why we continue to celebrate each year.

First, let's discuss the Earth Day basics. The very first Earth Day took place on April 22, 1970, and was put together by a Senator — Wisconsin's Democratic Senator Gaylord Nelson, to be specific. Nelson was very passionate about pushing an environmental agenda, and made this clear when he was elected back in 1962. Making people aware of the environmental impact that they had was a tough gig, so he decided to dedicate a full day to people giving back, choosing the 22nd since it was a day that many students, especially college students, could volunteer, based on their academic schedule. Nelson also made sure that the day didn't fall on any major religious holidays, so that people could be fully focused on the mission of Earth Day.

Before you volunteer on Earth Day, it's probably important to learn why. Here are a few facts, many numerical, about why Earth Day is an extremely important holiday to observe.

1. The average American often tosses away 4.5 pounds of garbage daily.

Major Waste Disposal estimates that the amount of garbage we toss, all together, on a daily basis, would fill 63,000 garbage trucks. This is why it's super important to reduce, reuse, and recycle — recycling helps us create more space, and make the most out of our materials and resources. Earth Day definitely pushes recycling, reminding us why it's important to take a second and put our garbage in the bins where it'd make the most difference.

2. Earth Day didn't take long to catch on.

In fact, 20 million people took part in the Earth Day activities of 1970, storming the streets to protest the industrial revolution. Unlike other starter holidays, people seemed psyched to celebrate it loud and proud. It's so big, that the Earth Day Network formed right around the same time, and currently works with 196 countries to help improve the environment.

3. It takes about a thousand years for plastic bottles to naturally break down.

Americans love plastic. But, Americans sometimes have a tough time recycling plastic. In 2012, we produced roughly 32 million tons of it, but it was reported that only about 25 percent of it was recycled. While this is kind of a petty percentage, the act of recycling really hit an upswing in the '90s — it used to be much, much worse. With Earth Day continually pushing the act of recycling, we can expect that percentage to grow a bunch in the future.

4. Recycling helps keep many jobs secure.

When you're making sure to separate your recyclables, think about how many jobs you're helping to create — 2.3 million, to be exact. So not only are you helping the Earth, but you're helping many people stay gainfully employed.

5. Speaking of trees, we use between 650 and 680 pounds of paper a year.

Earth Day is big with replanting trees, which is obviously good for providing oxygen, housing wildlife, and adding to the general aesthetic of the great outdoors. But, paper comes from trees — that's just a fact. And while we enjoy our Sunday funnies, it's important to know that 500,000 trees are used to create Sunday newspapers.

And that's just newspaper. What about printer paper? While more and more offices are getting better with making sure to recycle the paper that their printers chewed up, there's still a lot of work to be done. After all, TIME reports that by recycling one ton of paper, we'd be saving enough energy to heat an entire home for half of a year.

6. Disney is trying hard to spread the message.

Just a day before Earth Day in 2008, Disney founded "Disneynature," a company that works solely on documentaries about the Earth, and the animals that exist in it. It's located in Paris, and has released eight films so far. Its ninth is called Born In China, which will document endangered species found in China, and will be released on Earth Day this year. Its first film, Earth, debuted in America in 2009 and had the same exact premiere date.

7. Planting trees is important, since we're currently losing over 15 billion trees annually.

Obviously it's important to try and cut down our paper usage, but replacing what we've taken is equally important. According to TIME, our global percentage of trees has declined by 46 percent since humans took over — and that's a lot. It's why Earth Day takes pride in making sure we hit new records with planting trees. It's definitely an important step in fighting climate change.