How Earth Day Came About

Earth Day takes off 40 years ago today!

The history of Earth day is a great lesson in how at a grassroots level, a seed can take root, and blossom into a forest of consciousness, because of the power of people using their collective voices to take action!

The brainchild of Senator Gaylord Nelson, he used the student infused power of the anti-war movement in 1969 and coupled it with environmental concerns of the public to shed light, and force the issue onto the political agenda, which until then was not taking head.

It was announced that in spring of 1970 there would be a massive demonstration around the nation on behalf of the environment, inviting all to participate. This opened the floodgates to public outcry with a flood of questions and comments about environment being voiced directly to the Senate office in D.C.

Senator Gaylord says, “Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.”

Props to President Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy for the 5 day 11 city “Conservation Tour” and for seeing the relevance of this tremendously important issue back then. This is the seed that eventually flowered into Earth Day on every April 22.

http://earthday.envirolink.org/history.html

Lets bless our Mother Earth, and give back to the hand that feeds us!

Here is some things you can do:

1. Don’t drive at all today, use public transpo or carpool more often

2. Turn off your facet (when brushing teeth, washing face, etc)

3. Recycle (only 25% of Americans recycle)

4. Don’t throw away old batteries, buy rechargeable ones if possible, and take old batteries to recycling center

5. Turn down your water heater and your furnace

6. Air dry your clothes

7. Don’t let your car idle, turn the engine off.

8. Don’t buy styrofoam.

9. Buy recyclable items

10. Plant a tree, or a bunch of them, then breath!