Celebrate Earth Day

A rainbow emerges out of the clouds over Adam's Gulch.

Every year, on April 22, we celebrate Earth Day. It is a day to come together and show our appreciation for the environment here and everywhere. The tradition began in 1970 thanks to U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson. His idea was to start a nationwide grassroots movement that would push the environment into the political limelight, and his idea worked.

Senator Nelson came up with Earth Day after he took a trip to Santa Barbara, CA and saw the devastating aftermath of an oil spoil off the coast. He was so disgusted and outraged that he went back to Washington and passed a bill designating April 22 as Earth Day.

The date April 22 was chosen for a number of reasons. For one, it was the birthday of actor Eddie Albert, who did a lot of work for the environment. It was also the birthday of John Muir who founded the Sierra Club. It was also the birthday of Julius Sterling Morton, founder of Arbor Day, a tree-planting holiday that began in 1872. It was also the 100th birthday of Vladimir Lenin, which may have been just sheer coincidence, but J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, was not thrilled and allegedly conducted surveillances during the 1970 Earth Day demonstrations.

That being dead, the first Earth Day was a huge success. On April 22, 1970 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment. Smaller groups that had been fighting different forms of environmental abuse like oil spills, raw sewage and pesticides joined together in solidarity. Twenty years later, in 1990, Earth Day drove the movement toward recycling. In 2000, activists pushed for an end to global warming and development of clean energy. Last year Earth Day was one of the largest environmental celebrations ever with around one billion people from all over the world including countries such as Ukraine, Venezuela, Togo, Spain and beyond.

Let’s make this year’s Earth Day even better. To find out more about what you can do to improve your environment check out Plum’s Earth Bytes.