Earth Day


'''Earth Day''', April 22, is a secular holiday celebrated in many English-speaking countries. Its founding organizer, U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, intended it to be a day that focuses on political efforts to fight pollution, promote conservation, publicize the importance of biodiversity, and highlight other environmental concerns to protect the Earth. The symbol for Earth Day is a green Θ (Greek theta) on a white background: Θ The Earth flag has been associated with Earth Day since 1970.

History

Earth Day was first celebrated in 1970. Senator Nelson, an environmental activist in the U.S. Senate, organized it to demonstrate popular political support for an environmental agenda. Senator Nelson staffed the office with college students and selected Denis Hayes as coordinator of activities. Hayes had graduated in history at Stanford University, where he had become involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement. Afterwards, Hayes continued on to Harvard Law School, where he was a student at the time he was appointed Earth Day's activities coordinator. According to Senator Nelson, Earth Day "worked" because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. Though he felt his committee had neither the time nor resources to organize the 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated, these things did happen. According to the Senator, "It organized itself." Not, of course, without the help of Hayes and very many other student-age people spread through the country. The "holiday" proved extremely popular. The first Earth Day had participants and celebrants in two thousand colleges and universities, roughly ten thousand primary and secondary schools, and hundreds of communities. (Remember, this first day of awareness occurred some eight years after Rachel Carson s best-seller, Silent Spring, brought profound awareness of certain kinds of environmental problems and their intricacies to Americans awareness.) Senator Nelson directly credits Earth Day with persuading U.S. politicians that environmental legislation had a substantial, lasting constituency. The result of this persuasion was a series of U.S. environmental acts (laws), including the Clean Air Act, the Water Quality Improvement Act, the Water Pollution and Control Act Amendments, the Resource Recovery Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, and the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. In a 1980 article, Sen. Nelson credited the same political pressure for "the most important piece of environmental legislation in our history, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)", signed into law on January 1, 1970. The United Nations celebrates Earth Day each year on the vernal equinox (around March 21). On February 26, 1971, Secretary-General U Thant signed a proclamation to that effect. At the moment of the equinox, the Peace Bell is rung at the UN headquarters in New York. Denis Hayes returned as coordinator for the 20-year celebration of Earth Day. The alternative rock group Dramarama released a popular song about Earth Day in 1993 called "What Are We Gonna Do" http://www.lyricsbox.com/dramarama-lyrics-what-are-we-gonna-do-kbhgh4b.html. Category:Holidays Category:UN observances da:Jordens dag de:Tag der Erde es:Día de la Tierra eo:Tera Tago

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