What is Earth Day?
- Martha Viglietta
- Mar 29
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 29
Readers of a certain age will remember the smoggy air and polluted rivers that prompted activists to create Earth Day in 1970. Senator Gaylord Nelson (D., Wisconsin) and Congressman Pete McCloskey (R., CA) joined with activist Denis Hayes to organize campus teach-ins and demonstrations against unrestrained industrial development which was leaving a growing legacy of human health impacts and ecological degradation.
By the end of 1970, this movement led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Clean Air Act; the Clean Water Act followed in 1972, all during the Nixon administration.
In 1990, activists organized worldwide demonstrations that took Earth Day to the global level, and helped pave the way for the first U.N. Earth Summit, in Rio de Janeiro. President Bill Clinton gave Senator Gaylord Nelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his role as founder of Earth Day.
By 2000, activist Denis Hayes once again coordinated a worldwide coalition of environmental groups to dedicate Earth Day events to climate change action. On Earth Day 2016, the U.N. Paris Agreement was signed by 175 countries, setting goals for lowering greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
Earth Day has evolved into a worldwide Earth Month every April, filled with events that remind us to protect what we love, and take individual actions to preserve and heal our biosphere. Here in Pompey, the ECC Earth Day event provides free tree seedlings and recycling, and environmental information galore regarding: heat pumps, ticks, native gardening, climate change action, EVs and much more. New this year: rock painting for the kids, and a bottle and can drive by the Scouts.
Earth Day is a reminder of what citizen action can accomplish in the face of environmental threats. As climate change intensifies and we all feel more of its impacts, each of us can take steps to make every day Earth Day.