They changed the name to Earth Day, which immediately sparked national media attention, and caught on across the country. Recognizing its potential to inspire all Americans, Hayes built a national staff of 85 to promote events across the land and the effort soon broadened to include a wide range of organizations, faith groups, and others. They recruited Denis Hayes, a young activist, to organize the campus teach-ins and they choose April 22, a weekday falling between Spring Break and Final Exams, to maximize the greatest student participation. Senator Nelson announced the idea for a teach-in on college campuses to the national media, and persuaded Pete McCloskey, a conservation-minded Republican Congressman, to serve as his co-chair. Inspired by the student anti-war movement, Senator Nelson wanted to infuse the energy of student anti-war protests with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution. Then in January 1969, he and many others witnessed the ravages of a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. Senator Gaylord Nelson, the junior senator from Wisconsin, had long been concerned about the deteriorating environment in the United States. The environment and the inextricable links between pollution and public health.Įarth Day 1970 would come to provide a voice to this emerging environmental consciousness, and putting environmental concerns on the front page. In 24 countries as it raised public awareness and concern for living organisms, The book represented a watershed moment, selling more than 500,000 copies Rachel Carson’s New York Times bestseller Silent Spring inġ962. However, the stage was set for change with the publication of Remained largely oblivious to environmental concerns and how a polluted Air pollution was commonlyĪccepted as the smell of prosperity. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of theĬonsequences from either the law or bad press. In the decades leading up to the first Earth Day, Americans wereĬonsuming vast amounts of leaded gas through massive and inefficientĪutomobiles. Let’s take a look at the last half-century of mobilization for action: ORIGINS OF EARTH DAY Every year on April 22, Earth Day marks the anniversary of theīirth of the modern environmental movement in 1970.

History is all u left me