Earth Day

Since 1970, we have celebrated Earth Day on April 22 each year. In 1969, peace activist John McConnell proposed to UNESCO a day to honor the Earth and the concept of peace, which would be celebrated on March 21, 1970, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. A bit later, Senator Gaylord Nelson proposed his own version of Earth Day, as a day to teach about environmentalism. This day was set for April 22. It went international in 1990. One hundred ninety-two nations now observe the day, coordinated by the nonprofit Earth Day Network. Some have declared it the largest secular holiday in the world.

According to the LiveScience website, “Earth Day created public support for the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and contributed to the passage of the Clean Air Act, the Water Quality Improvement Act, the Endangered Species Act, and several other environmental laws.” Also, on Earth Day 2016, the United States, China, and some 120 other countries signed the Paris Agreement towards a climate protection treaty.

On the Earth Day Network page, you can find all different ways to get involved in this day which brings attention to our environment. In 2017, it is also the day of the March for Science. The main march is happening in Washington, DC, but you can find local actions for your area of the country or world by going to the March for Science Website. The marches are not just to celebrate science, but to do teaching about how important science is to our very lives and planet.

As they say on the Website: “In the face of an alarming trend toward discrediting scientific consensus and restricting scientific discovery … can [scientists] afford not to speak out in its defense? There is no Planet B.” If you appreciate breathable air and drinkable water, I hope you will give a thought to getting involved in some way in this important day.

Quotes about nature

All the works of Nature are Miracles, and nothing makes them appear otherwise but our familiarity with them.–Samuel Butler

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.–John Muir

Except for children (who don’t know enough not to ask the important questions), few of us spend time wondering why nature is the way it is.–Carl Sagan

The idea of wilderness needs no defense. It only needs more defenders.–Ed Abbey

If I have learned nothing else in all these months in the woods, I have thoroughly learned to keep hands off the processes of nature.-Laura Lee Davidson

If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things in nature have a message you understand, Rejoice, for your soul is alive.–Eleanora Duse

Let us leave a splendid legacy for our children…let us turn to them and say, this you inherit: guard it well, for it is far more precious than money…and once destroyed, nature’s beauty cannot be repurchased at any price.–Ansel Adams

Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty if only we have the eyes to see them.–John Ruskin

The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always. No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe. It’s not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time.–John Steinbeck

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