Earth Day
Earth Day is April 22. Earth Day is most often observed by the media,
hundreds
of local groups and noted on calendars on April 22. Many people also
observe
Earth Week and Earth Month. Since most events and festivals need
to take place
on a weekend, Earth Day is observed on the weekends before and
after April 22.
Others also observe it on March 21, the Vernal Equinox or
on World Environment
Day, June 6. Remember, that really, every day is an
Earth Day - we just need to
live our lives that way. History of Earth Day For
years prior to Earth Day it
had been troubling to me that the critical matter
of the state of our
environment was simply a non-issue in the politics of our
country. The
President, the Congress, the economic power structure of the
nation, and the
press paid almost no attention to this issue, which is of
such staggering import
to our future. It was clear that until we somehow got
this matter into the
political arena, until it became a part of the national
political dialogue, not
much would ever be achieved. The puzzling challenge
was to think up some
dramatic event that would focus national attention on
the environment. Finally,
in 1963 an idea occurred to me that was, I thought,
a virtual cinch to get the
environment into the political limelight once and
for all. That idea was to
persuade President Kennedy to give national
visibility to this issue by going on
a nationwide conservation tour, spelling
out in dramatic language the serious
and deteriorating condition of our
environment, and proposing a comprehensive
agenda to begin addressing the
problem. No President had ever made such a tour,
and I was satisfied this
would finally force the issue onto the nation's
political agenda. The
President like the idea and began his conservation tour in
the fall of 1963.
Senators Hubert Humphrey, Gene McCarthy, Joe Clark and I
accompanied the
President on the first leg of his trip to Pennsylvania,
Wisconsin,, and
Minnesota. For many reasons the tours didn't achieve what I had
hoped for -
it did not succeed in making the environment a national political
issue.
However, it was the germ of the idea that ultimately flowered into
Earth
Day. While the President's tour was a disappointment, I continued
to hope for
some idea that would thrust the environment into the political
mainstream. Six
years would pass before the idea for Earth Day occurred to me
in late July 1969,
while on a conservation speaking tour out West. At the
time there was a great
deal of turmoil on the college campuses over the
Vietnam War. Protests, call
anti-war teach-ins, were being widely held on
campuses across the nation. On a
flight from Santa Barbara to the University
of California/Berkeley, I read an
article on the teach-ins, and it suddenly
occurred to me, why not have a
nationwide teach-in on the environment? That
was the origin of Earth Day. I
returned to Washington in early August, raised
the funds to get Earth Day
started, and prepared letters to 50 governors and
to the mayors of all the major
cities explaining the event and requesting
that they issue Earth Day
Proclamations. I sent an Earth Day article to
all of the college newspapers
explaining the event and one to Scholastic
Magazine, which went to most of our
grade and high schools. In a speech given
in Seattle in September, I formally
announced that there would be a national
environmental teach-in sometime in the
spring of 1970. The wire services
carried the story nationwide. The response was
dramatic. It took off like
gangbusters. Telegrams, letters and Telephone
inquiries poured in from all
over the nation. Using my Senate staff, I ran Earth
Day activities out of
my office. By December, the movement had expanded so
rapidly that it became
necessary to open an office in Washington to serve as a
National
Clearinghouse for Earth Day inquiries and activities, at which point I
hired
Denis Hayes and others to coordinate the effort. Earth Day achieved what
I
had hoped for. The objective was to get a nationwide demonstration of
concern
for the environment so large that it would shake the political arena.
It was a
gamble, but it worked. An estimated twenty million people
participated in
peaceful demonstrations all across the country. Ten thousand
grade schools and
high schools, two thousand colleges, and one thousand
communities were involved.
In was a truly astonishing grassroots
explosion, The people cared and Earth Day
became the first opportunity they
ever had to join in a nationwide demonstration
to send a big message to the
politicians - a message to tell them to wake up and
do something. It worked
because of the spontaneous, enthusiastic response at the
grassroots. Nothing
like it had ever happened before. While our organizing on
college campuses
was very well done, the thousands of events in our schools and
communities
were self-generated at the local level. We had neither the time nor
resources
to organize the ten thousand grade schools and high schools and one
thousand
communities that participated. They simply organized themselves. That
was the
remarkable thing that became Earth Day. Don't ever forget, if you want
to
move the nation to make hard decisions as political issues, the grassroots
is
the source of power. With it you can do anything - without it, nothing. If
we
are going to move the nation to an environmentally sustainable economy,
you and
that young generation right behind you are going to have to do it -
and I think
you will. Earth Day Every Year Earth Day went for twenty years
until Denis Hayes
saw both the need and the opportunity to expand the scope
of Earth Day
internationally. For the 20th anniversary, Earth Day was
celebrated by more than
200 million people in 141 countries. A new
organization, the Earth Day Network,
has emerged from the seeds that were
planted in 1990. The Earth Day Network has
been founded by and for the grass
roots activists who have taken Earth Day
"to heart" in their locales on an
annual basis. In 1994 alone, more
than one million individuals attended Earth
Day events and thousands of
volunteers participated in projects in all fifty
states. The mission of the
Earth Day Network is to increase awareness,
responsibility and action toward a
clean, healthy future for all living
things using Earth Day as a catalyst. The
Network's focus is people. The
Network's commitment is environmental. Affiliated
groups of the Earth Day
Network include: Earth Day Canada, Earth Day New York,
Earth Day
Illinois, San Diego Earth Day, Earth Day Northwest, Earth Day
Hawaii,
EarthWays, St. Louis, Clean Air Council,/Philadelphia Earth Day
'95, Earth Day
Greater Boston, Stamford Connecticut Earth Day, Earth Day
Georgia, EnviroBaldwin,
Fairhope, Alabama, Ecology Action/Earth Day
Austin Texas, Michiana Earth Day,
Earth Day Arizona, Northern Nevada
Earth Day/Environmental Leadership, Reno NV,
GLOBE Ecology Coalition,
Long Beach CA. In addition to formal affiliates, the
Earth Day Network
supports and works with other local volunteer groups around
the country.
Groups receiving support in 1995 have included: Earth Service,
Inc., Los
Angeles, Our Planet Dallas TX, Friends of Sugar Creek,
Crawfordsville,
IN, Eco-Kansas City, Community Recycling Center,
Champaign IL, New Bedford MA
Earth Day, and Citizens for a Better South
Florida, Miami. The Earth Day Network
is working with other organizations
throughout the U.S. Please inquire about
contacts in your area. Network
Affiliate agreements, Sponsorship policies and
Earth Day Organizing
Surveys (to list Earth Day activities as part of theannual
events list) are
available by request. "If the environment is a fad, then
it's going to be our
last fad . . .We are building a movement, a movement with a
broad base, a
movement which transcends political boundaries. It is a movement
that values
people more than technology, people more than political boundaries,
people
more than profit." April 22, 1970, Denis Hayes, organizer of the
first Earth
Day and Chair of Earth Day
Northwest.