Go ahead, wrap your arms around a tree and give it a great big hug, after all, it’s April 22, also known as Earth Day.
Every year, April 22 marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement that began in 1970.
So here’s a little Earth Day history lesson.
Earth Day entered the world during some turbulent times in the United States.
Born in 1970, Earth Day entered the world the same year the Kent State shootings took place; "Bridge Over Troubled Water” and the Beatles' last album was recorded; Jimi Hendrix died; and oh, there was a meltdown of fuel rods in the Savannah River nuclear plant near Aiken, S.C.
Earth Day was founded by Gaylord Nelson, who was then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin.
Nelson proposed the first nationwide environmental protest to shake up the political establishment and force this issue onto the national agenda.
According to www.earthday.net [1]: “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.”And it was Earth Day 1970 that attempted to turn all that around.On April 22, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment.
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.
The first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water and Endangered Species acts.Nelson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor given to civilians in the United States, for his role as Earth Day founder.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 the status of environmental issues on to the world stage.
At 20 years old, 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.
As the millennium approached, Hayes agreed to spearhead another campaign, this time focused on global warming and a push for clean energy.
Earth Day 2000 combined the big-picture feistiness of the first Earth Day with the international grassroots activism of Earth Day 1990.
For 2000, Earth Day had the Internet to help link activists around the world. By the time April 22 rolled around, 5,000 environmental groups around the world were on board, reaching out to hundreds of millions of people in a record 184 countries.
Earth Day 2000 attempted to send the message loud and clear that citizens the world around wanted quick and decisive action on clean energy.Here are some other quick facts as to the significance of April 22 as Earth Day:
* April 22 was the birthday of actor Eddie Albert. Because of Albert's early work with environmental causes and groups, when International Earth Day was created, it was decided it must be held on April 22 because that was his birthday.
* April 21 was Sierra Club founder John Muir’s birthday. Organizers of Earth Day thought April 22 was Muir's birthday.
* April 22 is also Arbor Day founder Julious Sterling Morton’s birthday.Arbor Day is a national tree-planting holiday started in 1872. Arbor Day became a legal holiday in Nebraska in 1885, to be permanently observed on April 22. According to the National Arbor Day Foundation, "the most common day for the state observances is the last Friday in April . . . but a number of state Arbor Days are at other times to coincide with the best tree planting weather.”