Earth Day has been observed on April 22nd for 50+ years. This year’s theme for Earth Day is “Invest in Our Planet”.
The birth of this movement began in 1970 and sparked the emerging consciousness of our environmental issues and putting this topic on the front page for everyone to see. Senator Gaylord Nelson had a longtime concern for the decline in the quality of our environment. After the Santa Barbara oil spill in January 1969, Nelson announced that April 22, 1970 would be the day to host a nationwide environmental teach-in on college campuses. He recruited a young activist Denis Hayes to help organize this teach-in. Hayes then built a national staff of 85 individuals to promote this event. This event started to truly catch national media attention after changing the event name from a Nationwide Environmental Teach-in to Earth Day. Once this occurred, 20 million Americans took to the streets to demonstrate against the impact of the years of industrial development, and at the time 20 million was 10% of the population of America.
Fast forward to 1990, a group of environmental leaders reached out to Denis Hayes to ask if he would organize a campaign for the planet, not just the United States. Earth Day then went global resulting in 200 million people in 141 countries bringing the earth’s environmental issues to the world stage.
Our planet is important and we need to take care of it to ensure a healthy tomorrow! So make sure you get outside on April 22nd and do something for our planet. If you’re interested in learning more about Earth Day, click here.
Here are some ways you can participate:
- Trade-in your plastic wear for reusable items
- Support and buy local produce from farmers
- Volunteer at a community garden
- Invite others and go on a nature walk together to experience the outdoors
- For more ways to participate not only on April 22nd but every day, click here.