Happy Earth Day!

This year, we took an interest in the history of Earth Day (April 22, 2015) and Arbor Day (April 24, 2015).  With both holidays falling just 2 days apart, it got us wondering… What’s the difference?  How did they come to be?

In today’s blog post, we dive into Earth Day, a globally recognized holiday and  the largest secular civil event in the world, according to the EarthDay.org.    Come back Friday, and learn more about Arbor Day.

Earth Day is a day of education about environmental issues and serves as a reminder each year that to maintain our earth, our home, as a safe, healthy, and beautiful place to live, it takes TLC from each and every one of its inhabitants – us.

Where does one go to learn about history?  History.com!  Here’s a very high level synopsis of what we learned there.

The History of Earth Day

Earth day was founded in 1970 by Senator Gaylord Nelson, of Wisconsin.  It was inspired by the antiwar protests of the late 1960’s, and was originally aimed at creating a mass environmental movement.  It began as a “national teach-in on the environment” and was held on April 22 to maximize the number of students that could be reached on university campuses. By raising public awareness of air and water pollution, Nelson hoped to bring environmental causes into the national spotlight and onto our political agenda.

Nelson announced the Earth Day concept in the fall of 1969 and set a date.  He invited the entire nation to get involved.   The response by the American people at a grassroots level was huge.   Over 20 million demonstrators and thousands of schools and local communities participated that first Earth Day on April 22, 1970.

Earth Day brought attention to some significant environmental issues and is recognized as the forerunner to legislation passed, such as the Clean Air Act, the Water Quality Improvement Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Toxic Substances Control Act (all pretty important!).

After 1970, Earth Day continued to grow, and in 1990, Earth Day went global, with 200 million people in over 140 nations participating.   By 2000, Earth Day focused on clean energy and involved hundreds of millions of people in 184 countries and 5,000 environmental groups.

Today, according to the Earth Day Network (EDN), more than 1 billion people are involved in Earth Day activities and over 1.1 billion “Acts of Green” have been tracked.

Pretty amazing!

Earthday.org provide many helpful tips for saving the environment each day.

And, check out this article we published last year on our blog about helpful tips for maintaining a lush, green lawn and reducing your water and energy usage.

Do you have unique Earth Day celebration and/or energy and water saving tips?  Please share in a Facebook comment below!

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