Features

On April 22 Americans will be celebrating the 31st anniversary of Earth Day. In 1969 Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, frustrated by the lack of political attention to the state of the environment, took a lesson from the anti-Vietnam War “teach-ins” that were taking place across the country.  

He announced that the following spring a national grassroots demonstration would take place in celebration of the Earth and in protest of the destruction being caused to it. The community response was phenomenal: the first Earth day celebration, on April 22, 1970, drew over 20 million participants from coast to coast, according to the Earth Day Network website. Politicians took notice, and by the end of 1970 had founded the Environmental Protection Agency and passed the Clean Air Act.  

Within three years the United States also had the Clean Water Act, the Endagered Species Act, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act on the books. On the 20th anniversary of Earth Day in 1990, 200 million people in 140 countries demonstrated in support of the environment.