Earth Day 2024
Invest In Our Planet
This year marks the 54th anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement, commemorated annually as Earth Day.
Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally and including 1 billion people in more than 193 countries. The official theme for 2023 is Invest In Our Planet. Earth Day 1970 would come to provide a voice to this emerging environmental consciousness and putting environmental concerns on the front page.
"Love the earth as you would
love yourself."
John Denver
A not-so-brief History of Earth Day
Before 1970 – Increasing environmental concern
In the decades leading up to the first Earth Day, North Americans were consuming vast amounts of leaded gas through massive and inefficient automobiles. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of the consequences from either the law or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. Until this point, mainstream North America remained largely oblivious to environmental concerns and how a polluted environment threatens human health.
However, the stage was set for change with the publication of Rachel Carson’s New York Times bestseller Silent Spring in 1962. The book represented a watershed moment, selling more than 500,000 copies in 24 countries as it raised public awareness and concern for living organisms, the environment and the inextricable links between pollution and public health.
Then in January 1969, many people witnessed the ravages of a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. Inspired by the student anti-war movement, an American senator wanted to infuse the energy of student anti-war protests with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution. They choose April 22, a weekday falling between Spring Break and Final Exams, to maximize the greatest student participation.
1970 – The start of an Environmental Movement
They changed the name to Earth Day, which immediately sparked national media attention, and caught on across the country. Earth Day inspired 20 million Americans — at the time, 10% of the total population of the United States — to take to the streets, parks and auditoriums to demonstrate against the impacts of 150 years of industrial development which had left a growing legacy of serious human health impacts. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment and there were massive coast-to-coast rallies in cities, towns, and communities.
1990 – Earth Day Around the Globe
As 1990 approached, a group of environmental leaders once again organized another major campaign for the planet. This time, Earth Day went global, mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting environmental issues onto the world stage. Earth Day 1990 gave a huge boost to recycling efforts worldwide and helped pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
2000 – A Focus on Global Warming and Clean Energy
As the millennium approached, another campaign, this time focused on global warming and a push for clean energy was born. With 5,000 environmental groups in a record 184 countries reaching out to hundreds of millions of people, Earth Day 2000 built both global and local conversations, leveraging the power of the Internet to organize activists around the world, while also featuring a drum chain that traveled from village to village in Gabon, Africa. Hundreds of thousands of people also gathered on the National Mall in Washington, DC for a First Amendment Rally.
30 years on, Earth Day 2000 sent world leaders a loud and clear message: Citizens around the world wanted quick and decisive action on global warming and clean energy.
2010 – Battling cynics and deniers
Earth Day 2010 came at a time of great challenge for the environmental community to combat the cynicism of climate change deniers, well-funded oil lobbyists, reticent politicians, a disinterested public, and a divided environmental community with the collective power of global environmental activism. In the face of these challenges, Earth Day prevailed.
2023 – Billions of people participating
Today, Earth Day is widely recognized as the largest secular observance in the world, marked by more than a billion people every year as a day of action to change human behaviour and create global, national and local policy changes.
Now, the fight for a clean environment continues with increasing urgency, as the ravages of climate change become more and more apparent every day.
As the awareness of our climate crisis grows, so does civil society mobilization, which is reaching a fever pitch across the globe today. Disillusioned by the low level of ambition following the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015 and frustrated with international environmental lethargy, citizens of the world are rising up to demand far greater action for our planet and its people. 1
We are doing our part in West Niagara – Join Us.
