Earth Day: April 22, 2008

Earth Day, held every year on April 22. Earth Day has a past that dates to 1962. For seven years, Earth Day was in the making and finally in 1970 Earth Day was found. Gaylord Nelson, founder of Earth Day, was troubled that the state of our environment was simply a non issue in the politics of the county. In November of 1962, he came up with an idea. He was going to persuade President Kennedy to give visibility to this issue by going on a notional conservation tour. He agrees and like Nelsons proposal so the President began his five-day, eleven-state conservation tour in September 1963. The tour did not have much success but lay the roots to what we know now as Earth Day. Nelson continued on with his idea of needing to do more to preserve the environment and then finally came up with having a nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment in the spring of 1970. Word spread quickly and at the first Earth Day there were over 20 million demonstrators, thousands of schools, and local communities that participated. Nelson said, “We had neither the time nor the resources to organize that many people but that was the remarkable thing about Earth Day, it organized itself.”

According to http://ww2.earthday.net/node/80, Earth Day 2008 is supposed to be the biggest yet. Everywhere from Tokyo to Washington, DC, millions of people around the world will galvanize behind a Call for Climate, the global warming action theme. On April 22, 2008, they are asking people to call their government and urge significant and equitable action on climate. They are hoping to generate a million phone calls to lawmakers. If in Washington, DC, you will be able to attend, listen to, and see performance from Jordin Sparks, The Roots, O.A.R., Toots and the Maytals, and Warren Haynes. Also, some well know speakers will be present such as: Ed Norton, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Rep. Ed Markey, Rep. Jane Harman, Tom Friedman, Russell Simmons and many more.

Along with many things going on around the world, for you that live in Chico California, there will be a number of things one can attend and learn how to preserve our environment. Chico State University dedicates the whole month of April as Earth Month. Throughout the whole month, event are being held that deal with everything from saving money on your electric bill to doing local volunteer work for the environment throughout the community. Due to a busy and hectic schedule, I personally did not get to attend any Earth Day event in my local community of Chico, but I am supplementing other thing to contribute to the environment. For example, I drive an environmental friendly Ford hybrid, recycle cans, bottles, and other recyclable friendly items on a regular basis, and I am very strict on the amount of electricity I consume in my household. Our environment is a very forgiving but fragile atmosphere; we constantly take from it and rarely give back to it. We must take an active stand to preserve the earth for our future generations.