Last Sunday was monumental in U.S. history. Does anyone know why? No? We didn’t think so.
Back in 1970, Sen. Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin proposed a nationwide “Environmental Teach-in” on college campuses across the country. Denis Hayes, a Harvard graduate student, helped organize the event, which involved 20 million Americans celebrating the inaugural Earth Day on April 22, 1970, according to earthdayla.org. The first Earth Day had participants and celebrations in an astounding two thousand universities and colleges across the nation. Earth Day influenced politics in a way no one would ever have imagined.
But why April 22, you ask? Many speculate to the real reason why Nelson chose that particular day, and some say it is because April 22 is also Julius Sterling Morton’s birthday. Never heard of him? He’s the founder of Arbor Day, the national tree-planting holiday started in 1872.
Earth Day is highly influential in many ways. It directly influenced the Clean Air Act, for instance, not to mention the United States Environmental Protection Agency. The day is thought of as a time for reflection and recognition of our wondrous planet, although environmental groups have sought to make Earth Day a time for action, specifically to provoke policy changes in Washington and widespread societal change.
Earth Day is not just celebrated in the U.S., either. According to the Web site, over 168 countries celebrate Earth Day and over 4,000 organizations help recognize this historic day around the globe.
So what, you ask, are you supposed to do? Earth Day has already passed, that’s true. Thousands celebrated in our native Los Angeles area, and millions worldwide came together to give gratitude and celebrate our miraculous, yet fragile, earth we inhabit.
We know this has been a hard year, with gas prices on the rise, and the multiple food scares we’ve endured, from mercury in our fish to E. coli in our lettuce. We’ve had to suffer through poor water quality and over-polluted air, just two of the many self- perpetuating inconveniences we create.
Global warming hysteria has been constantly shoved in our faces, making us feel guilty about our cars and our overall carelessness when it comes to the environment. We know it can become mundane and annoying to be constantly bombarded with eco-friendly “suggestions” and guidelines on how to live a “greener” life, but you must realize that we’re not doing this for nothing.
We, along with every other major media outlet in the world, are trying to inform the public, trying to make sure everyone knows what they can do and why it’s so important. This is not some hoax, some elaborate scheme to make millions off the American people. It’s real, and knowing that you could be causing the demise of our planet is a bit unsettling, don’t you think?
Dramatics aside, Earth Day turned out to be quite a powerful celebration around the world and it came at just the right moment in time. Let’s hope this noble tradition continues for generations to come, and that our planet can survive until then.
