When and What is Earth Day? 2020 Edition
Image of Earth captured by NASA’s Suomi low orbiting satellite (public domain).
Page last updated April 21, 2020
“Earth Day” had two beginnings. In October 1969 at a UNESCO conference in San Francisco, author and activist John McConnell proposed a day to honor the Earth, to be celebrated on the vernal equinox, March 21, 1970. The event took place, recognized by a proclamation issued by San Francisco mayor Joseph Alioto, in communities in California and elsewhere. The annual celebration of what has since come to be called United Nations Earth Day or Equinox Earth Day was sanctioned by a proclamation signed by U.N. Secretary General U Thant on February 26, 1971.
At around the same time, inspired by the horror of the Santa Barbara oil spill in January 1969, Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson hatched a plan (implemented in large part by a young Harvard graduate student named Dennis Hayes) for a national "teach-in" on the environment in order to raise the profile of environmental issues in national political debate. This event was held on April 22, 1970 (the name “Earth Day” was suggested by advertising executive Julian Koenig). Nelson chose the date explicitly in order to maximize participation on college campuses. It involved an estimated 20 million Americans (a tenth of the U.S. population at the time) in rallies, teach-ins, speeches, and other events across the county. Many historians consider the April Earth Day to be the beginning of the modern environmental movement. Polls indicated that a permanent change in national priorities followed the event, with major increases in the proportion of the U.S. public who thought that protecting the environment was an important goal. The day spawned and trained a generation of activists who went on to found or run a host of environmental organizations. Thus, although March 21 was first, it is April 22 that became the "Earth Day'' that most Americans think about today, as we celebrate its 50th anniversary.
Despite its indisputable impact, Earth Day itself has been something of a mixed bag over its first half-century. In most American communities it is a day of recycling, cleaning up garbage, poster contests, and public statements of concern about the environment. It is often an occasion for measuring the somewhat contradictory state of that environment—to observe, for example, that across the world over the past several decades many environmental laws have been enacted or strengthened, water and air quality have generally improved, and many habitats and species have been protected; yet at the same time, millions of acres of rainforest have been destroyed, coral reefs are dying around the world, more species are endangered than ever, and—especially—global climate change is a stark and growing reality.
In 2020, Earth Day is perhaps more somber and pensive than it has ever been, and not just because the coronavirus pandemic is dampening observances around the world. Much of the progress that had been made in environmental protection in the U.S. over the past few decades is either threatened or already being undone by the Trump administration. A reactionary president in Brazil seems determined to destroy the Amazon forest. The existential threat presented by climate change across the globe is now obvious to all but the deliberately ignorant or obtuse. The oceans, once thought to be buffered from much human-caused change, are clearly imperiled by warming, acidification, plastic pollution, and overfishing. The partial (and temporary) de-industrialization caused by the pandemic has in many parts of the world highlighted just how large some human environmental effects really are: from Delhi to New York the air is cleaner, the oceans are quieter, and wildlife walks in almost-deserted city streets.
Some observers have suggested that the pandemic may offer a unique opportunity to “start over” with respect to the environment. Maybe, goes this line of thinking, the coronavirus will convincingly demonstrate our essential fragility in the face of an unforgiving nature mishandled. Maybe the decline in petroleum use will be (at least partly) permanent. Maybe the blue skies in formerly smog-choked cities will be a resounding reminder of what we have lost. Maybe the sense of sacrifice for the common good (to the degree that it exists) will be turned toward the tremendous revolution in behavior that will be necessary to successfully confront climate change. Maybe.
In an earlier version of this essay, published in 2004, I ruminated:
For me, the message of Earth Day, whether in March or April, whether it is focused on solid waste or endangered species, is knowledge and awareness. The principal accomplishment of the events in 1970 was, after all, to spread the word that the Earth's resources are not unlimited and that there is a problem, and to share this understanding beyond the narrow confines of the scientist or activist. This is still the challenge and the promise of Earth Day today. If anything, the environmental problems we confront today are more difficult and more severe than they were in 1970, and that means they need more information, more knowledge, more understanding, on the part of every citizen.
I still believe all this. But I also know that when it comes to environmental conservation—maybe we need to now call it environmental salvage—time is not our friend. Yes, we continue to need to increase knowledge and awareness. After all, we have discovered a great deal we did not know about threats to the environment in the last 16 years. And there are millions of youngsters, and remarkably large numbers of oldsters, who desperately need increased awareness. But on the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, more than anything else, we need action. We are sufficiently knowledgeable and aware to understand that if we do not act very soon to significantly reduce negative human impact on the Earth’s environment, we and future generations will inhabit a much less livable planet. Large numbers of people will be displaced, will suffer, die, and live much-diminished lives. We know this, as well as we know anything about the near-term future.
In reflecting on Earth Day at 50, Dennis Hayes recently wrote in the Seattle Times that “Covid-19 robbed us of Earth Day this year. So let’s make Election Day Earth Day.” He urged Americans to act to fulfill the promise of the event he did so much to establish on our calendar: “This November 3,” he wrote, “vote for the Earth.”
Every day should be Earth Day, but especially this November 3.
Further Reading
Schwartz, John, 2020, The ‘Profoundly Radical’ Message of Earth Day’s First Organizer. The New York Times, April 20