Encyclopedic Entry

Earth Day

International Mother Earth Day

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Encyclopedic Entry
Vocabulary

Encyclopedic Entry

Earth Day is an annual celebration that honors the achievements of the environmental movement and raises awareness of the need to protect Earth’s natural resources for future generations. Earth Day is celebrated on April 22 in the United States and on either April 22 or the day the spring equinox occurs throughout the rest of the world.

Environmental activism during the 1960s inspired Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson to create a national celebration uniting the environmental movement. With the help of Denis Hayes, a graduate student at Harvard University, Nelson organized the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, educating participants in the importance of environmental conservation. Attended by 20 million people across the United States, the event strengthened support for legislation such as the Clean Air Act (updated in 1970) and the Endangered Species Act (1973).

In 1990, Hayes organized a global Earth Day, with more than 200 million participants in more than 140 countries. Earth Day now brings together citizens and activists from around the world to raise awareness and take action regarding such environmental concerns as global warming and renewable energy.

Today, the Earth Day Network (EDN), which brings together more than 20,000 partners and organizations in 190 countries, supports the Earth Day mission year-round. This mission is founded on the premise that all people, regardless of race, gender, income, or geography, have a moral right to a healthy, sustainable environment. The Earth Day Network pursues this mission through education, public policy, and activism campaigns. These campaigns bring together more than 1 billion participants every year, making it one of the largest public, secular events in the world.

The Earth Day Network pursues a set of core goals:

Broaden the Meaning of “Environment” to include issues such as climate change, green schools and environmental curricula, green jobs, and renewable energy;
Promote Civic Engagement and Mobilize Communities by working with partner organizations to provide opportunities for all citizens to become active in the environmental movement;
Implement Environment Education Programs such as the National Civic Education Project, which works with students to solve local environmental problems;
Inspire College Students to Become Environmental Leaders through campus outreach campaigns that seek to strengthen the environmental community in colleges and universities around the world;
Bring Clean Water and Sanitation to the World by helping individuals, organizations, or businesses to fund rural water projects through the Global Water Network.

Earth Day’s Core Issues

This set of goals underlines Earth Day events and actions around the world, which the Earth Day Network (EDN) organizes into ten core issues.

Advocacy: EDN encourages individuals and organizations to meet with elected officials to discuss environmental issues. The EDN’s most powerful advocacy event is the Climate Rally, which takes place in Washington, D.C., on the weekend closest to Earth Day. The Climate Rally brings together campus groups, concerned citizens, and environmental organizations. The Climate Rally also includes musicians, writers, and artists who are concerned about the impact of climate change.

Climate Change: EDN raises awareness about climate change, human contribution to those changes, and opportunities to slow the phenomenon. The Earthchild Institute, for example, has developed kits that empower young people to set up nurseries and plant trees in their communities.

Conservation & Biology: EDN works to conserve the world’s biodiversity. On Earth Day 2010, for instance, participants in Sri Lanka planted more than 100 medicinal plants throughout the tropical rain forest at Yagirala Forest Reserve. These plants can be used by local populations and will create habitats for different organisms, enhancing the biodiversity of the island nation.

Education: EDN’s education programs provide educators, students, and the general public with resources and solutions to create a healthier, more sustainable planet. EDN also sponsors an online Educators’ Network, connecting over 25,000 teachers with environmental education resources. On Earth Day 2010, for instance, teachers and students in the Compostela Valley region of the Philippines participated in a day-long conference. At the conference, they learned about tree planting and care, participated in nature hikes, and presented their environmental action projects to the community.

Energy: EDN supports projects that develop renewable energy sources and technologies as means of transitioning off of nonrenewable sources, such as coal and oil. Citizens of Qatar, for example, are invited to switch off their power for one hour on Earth Day in a symbolic stance against human contributions to global warming.

Food & Agriculture: EDN raises awareness about some farming practices, such as the use of chemical pesticides, which contribute to environmental degradation. EDN advocates for a greater support of organic, local, and sustainable agricultural techniques. Member organizations of this issue group include Articultores, based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which raises awareness about urban gardening and brings citizens and youth together to plant in abandoned sites in the country’s cities.

Green Economy: EDN advocates for the creation of green industries and jobs that are connected to renewable energy sources. For example, the Students in Free Enterprise group in Saskatchewan, Canada, sponsors a prize for student projects that make best use of recycled materials.

Green Schools: EDN sponsors the National GREEN Schools Campaign. The GREEN Schools Campaign includes a focus on healthy school lunches, environmental classroom activities, outreach to local and national leaders, and an emphasis on sustainable building techniques.

Recycling & Waste Reduction: EDN works to reduce the amount of waste that people produce, and increase the amount that we recycle and reuse. The Beach Bunch group of Brunei, for example, organizes beach-cleaning campaigns.

Sustainable Development: EDN promotes environmental practices that respect biodiversity and the natural world. Costa Rica, for instance, has implemented the Viaje Limpio program, in which individuals and companies pay a fee for the greenhouse gases they produce through travel. This money goes to protect the rain forest, water resources, and biodiversity of Costa Rica. Viaje Limpio helps the Costa Rican economy, because biodiversity and the rain forest are important natural assets that bring thousands of tourists to the country every year.

In only 40 years, Earth Day has evolved from a single day celebrating the environmental movement in the United States to a global network that empowers more than a billion people to better understand, protect, and improve the environment.

Photo: Dozens of people picnic on blankets in a large park surrounded by hi-rise buildings.

The United Nations declared April 22 "International Mother Earth Day" in 2009. Bolivian President Evo Morales said "Sixty years after adopting the [Universal Declaration of Human Rights], Mother Earth is now, finally, having her rights recognized."

Photograph by Anthony Smith, MyShot

Why April 22?
Earth Day falls on April 22. The day was chosen by the original event's organizer, Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson, for simple reasons. Earth Day was an event focused on college students, and April 22 did not interfere with Spring Break, final exams, major religious holidays such as Easter, and was late enough in spring to anticipate decent weather for outdoor activities.
Margaret Mead's Holy Day
"Earth Day is the first holy day which transcends all national borders, yet preserves all geographical integrities, spans mountains and oceans and time belts, and yet brings people all over the world into one resonating accord, is devoted to the preservation of the harmony in nature and yet draws upon the triumphs of technology, the measurement of time, and instantaneous communication through space."

—Margaret Mead, cultural anthropologist

Vocabulary

Term	Part of Speech	Definition
achieve	noun	to accomplish or attain.
agriculture	noun	the art and science of cultivating the land for growing crops (farming) or raising livestock (ranching).
annual	adjective	yearly.
beach	noun	narrow strip of land that lies along a body of water.
biodiversity	noun	all the different kinds of living organisms within a given area.
Clean Air Act	noun	(1955) set of rules and regulations to control air pollution in the United States. Originally called the Air Pollution Control Act, most recently updated in 1990.
climate change	noun	gradual changes in all the interconnected weather elements on our planet.
coal	noun	dark, solid fossil fuel mined from the Earth.
conservation	noun	management of a natural resource to prevent exploitation, destruction, or neglect.
degradation	noun	breaking down.
Earth Day Network (EDN)	noun	environmental organization founded on the premise that all people, regardless of race, gender, income, or geography, have a moral right to a healthy, sustainable environment.
Earth Day	noun	April 22, an international holiday to honor the need to protect the environment.
economy	noun	system of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
Endangered Species Act	noun	(1973) U.S. legislation that protects endangered species when they are threatened by human activity.
environment	noun	conditions that surround and influence an organism or community.
equinox	noun	period in which daylight and darkness are nearly equal. There are two equinoxes a year.
farming	noun	the art, science, and business of cultivating the land for growing crops.
gender	noun	physical, cultural, and social aspects of sexual identity.
generation	noun	group in a species made up of members that are roughly the same age.
geography	noun	study of places and the relationships between people and their environments.
global warming	noun	increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s air and oceans.
green job	noun	work in agricultural, manufacturing, research and development, administrative, and service activities that contributes substantially to preserving or restoring environmental quality.
greenhouse gas	noun	gas in the atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide and ozone, that absorbs solar heat reflected by the surface of the Earth, warming the atmosphere.
habitat	noun	environment where an organism lives throughout the year or for shorter periods of time.
income	noun	wages, salary, or amount of money earned.
legislation	noun	law, legal act, or statute.
medicinal plant	noun	plant used to cure or comfort people or animals suffering from disease.
moral	adjective	right, just, or good.
natural resource	noun	a material that humans take from the natural environment to survive, to satisfy their needs, or to trade with others.
oil	noun	fossil fuel formed from the remains of marine plants and animals. Also known as petroleum or crude oil.
organic	adjective	produced according to standards using limited amounts of chemical additives.
pesticide	noun	natural or manufactured substance used to kill organisms that threaten agriculture or are undesirable. Pesticides can be fungicides (which kill harmful fungi), insecticides (which kill harmful insects), herbicides (which kill harmful plants), or rodenticides (which kill harmful rodents.)
island	noun	body of land surrounded by water.
phenomenon	noun	an unusual act or occurrence.
premise	noun	assumption or supporting idea.
public policy	noun	course of actions, beliefs, and laws taken by a government having to do with a specific issue or concern.
race	noun	arbitrary grouping of people based on genetics and physical characteristics.
rain forest	noun	area of tall evergreen trees and a high amount of rainfall.
renewable energy	noun	source of power that will always be abundant, such as solar, wind, or tidal energy.
rural	adjective	having to do with country life, or areas with few residents.
secular	adjective	not having to do with religion or spirituality.
sustainability	noun	use of resources in such a manner that they will never be exhausted.
symbolic	adjective	serving as a representation of something.
tourist	noun	person who travels for pleasure.
urban	adjective	having to do with city life.
advocate	verb	to argue in favor of something.