The First Earth Day…

Maybe some of you 50 something year olds – who were in high school or college will remember that time - the height of the hippies and flower-child culture in the United States. The 1970’s brought the death of Jimi Hendrix, the last Beatles album, and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Protest was the order of the day, but saving the planet was not the cause. War raged in Vietnam, and students nationwide increasingly opposed it. At the time, Americans were slurping leaded gas through massive V8 sedans. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity.

The idea behind the first Earth Day was to put the environment into the political "limelight,” and channel the energy of the anti-war movement to environmental concerns. On this day in 1970, U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson orchestrated a massive environmental teach-in, which resulted in Earth Day as we know it today. Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. Thousands of children, students, community leaders and members participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day - it organized itself.

Through this event, Gaylord raised public awareness and concern for living organisms, public health and the environment. The first Earth Day had sweeping political ramifications; Congress went on to make the 1970s the “Environmental Decade” by establishing the bulk of today’s environmental regulations - “the Environmental Protection Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act."

The second Earth Day launched one of the most famous TV public service ad campaigns of all time - "Keep America Beautiful!" This campaign first aired on Earth Day, 1971, and featured Native American actor Chief Iron Eyes Cody and the tagline: "People Start Pollution. People can stop it."

Today, more than one billion people worldwide, many of them children, participate in or recognize Earth Day in some way, making it one of the largest civic observances in the world.

The U.S. recycling rate in 1970 – prior to the first Earth Day – was a mere 6.6 percent for all recyclable materials. The rate today is nearly 35 percent. The fight for a clean environment continues. Be a part of Earth Day! Contribute an “act of green” for the benefit of our planet. Discover energy you didn't even know you had. Feel it rumble through the grassroots under your feet and the technology at your fingertips. Channel it into building a clean, healthy, diverse world for generations to come.