Earth Day
The environment of this earth is gradually deteriorating and its natural resources depleting every day. To create awareness to protect the mother earth April 22nd has been assigned as the Earth Day.
The idea was first proposed by John McConnell in the 1969 conference of UNESCO in San Francisco. The first Earth day, however, was observed in San Francisco and few other cities on March 21, 1970. The day was selected because it was the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. During the same time a separate day was celebrated by United States Senator Gaylord Nelson on April 22nd as environmental teach-in. The idea of creating awareness against environmental pollution occurred to him after witnessing the massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. He took advantage of the increasing awareness in general Americans against air and water pollution in celebrating Earth’s Day. Around 20 million people took part in Earth Day rallies that year.
Till 1990 Earth Day was celebrated only in the US but Denis Hayes gave it international recognition by coordinating it across 141 nations in the same year.
In 2009, the United Nations sanctioned April 22nd as International Mother Earth Day. They have plans to celebrate the day every year till 2015. The Earth Day Network is responsible for conducting the event worldwide. Earth Day is now celebrated by more than 175 countries.
In many countries earth week and even months are observed starting from April 22nd. Conferences, seminars, workshops, rallies, discussions are organized over the impending issues of global warming, overall deterioration of environmental condition and creating awareness among people to protect the planet.
Earth Day Network
Earth Day Network is the responsible body for coordinating Earth Day celebration across 175 nations. The founding members of this organization were Denis Hayes and Pam Lippe, one of the first Earth Day organizers. The network is responsible for coordinating and organizing year-round activities for protecting the earth and raising different environmental issues. The Earth Day Network is a conglomeration of both government and non government organizations. The different members of the network are:
Local government offices
Quasi government organization
Non-profit organizations
Environmental activists
The network focuses on:
Conducting environmental educational programs
Focusing and discussing on local, national, and global policies
Conducting public environmental campaigns
Organizing Earth Day events both at national and international levels
Promote activism
Creating awareness about different environmental issues
Currently it has over 19,000 members representing 192 countries. At the domestic level they have got over 10,000 groups and 100 thousand educators conducting over a million environmental development programs.
Earth Day Canada
The first Earth Day was observed by a graduate student of Physics and Solar Engineering at Queen's University, Paul D. Tinari, in the year 1980. He observed the day on 11th September. Later, Flora MacDonald, the then MP for Kingston and the Islands and Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs officially declared Earth Day Canada Week on September 6th 1980. The day was formally observed by planting sapling for a greener world.
The first Earth Day Canada was spent by volunteers planting new trees, replacing trees that died of Dutch Elm disease, cleaning public parks, and picking litters from highways.
Earth Day Canada (EDC), a charity organization founded in the year 1990, is responsible for offering Canadians the practical knowledge and tools that will help them curb the impact of environmental pollution. They conduct year long educational programs and workshops to aware people of the environmental issues. Their programs have earned them the recognition of the leading environmental educational organization in North America in 2004. EDC runs the following environmental educational programs:
Ecokids
EcoMentors,
EcoAction Teams,
Community Environment Fund
Hometown Heroes
The Toyota Earth Day Scholarship Program
The Ecology Flag
The ecology flag created by cartoonist Ron Cobb was first displayed on 7th November 1969 in Los Angeles Free Press. The logo of the flag was created by combining E and O which represent ‘Environment’ and ‘Organism’ respectively. The green and white stripes of the flag are inspired by the US national flag. Its canton contains a yellow theta on the green background. This associated the theta to the Earth Day.
Send Earth Day cards to your friends and relatives -
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