All About Earth Day 2017

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April 22 marks Earth Day 2017. Every year since 1970, Earth Day has been a time to celebrate our world’s environment. Since its beginning, Earth Day has inspired millions to be more aware and more appreciative of the planet we inhabit. We are now entering the 47th year of a movement that continues to inspire, challenge ideas, ignite passion and motivate people to action.

Earth Day Origins:

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.
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 AirClean Water, and Endangered Species Acts. “It was a gamble,” Gaylord recalled, “but it worked.”

Earth Day Today:

As the millennium approached, more than 5,000 environmental groups in a record 184 countries reaching out to hundreds of millions of people, 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.

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.

Click here to learn more.

Boys’ Life wrote about the very first Earth Day in the December 1970 issue. Check out the full article below:

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Check out this cool video about what Earth will look like 100,000,000 from now.

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