Happy Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day, everyone!

What is Earth Day, you may ask? Well, Earth Day is a day to celebrate the Earth's natural beauty and to call for protection of the environment. The first Earth Day was celebrated on this day in 1970. One year earlier, a peace activist named John McConnell had proposed a day to celebrate the concept of peace that would be held on March 21, 1970. That day was considered the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. He proposed this day at a UNESCO conference. This proposal would be made into a proclamation that was written by McConnell and then signed by then-UN Secretary General U Thant.

A month later, United States Senator Gaylord Nelson (yes, that was his name) proposed an idea for a nationwide teach-in to be held on April 22, 1970. Nelson was inspired by witnessing the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill from an airplane. He hired an activist named Denis Hayes to be the teach-in's National Coordinator. The event became "Earth Day". Hayes took the idea national, and 20 million Americans participated in the protest, making it the largest single-day protest in human history.

Over the next 50 years, the event would grow. In 1990, Hayes would organize Earth Day events in 141 countries. In 2020, over 100 million people amassed online to celebrate Earth Day's 50th anniversary, the largest mass-mobile gathering ever.

On this day, we should do something we should do every day, think about our natural world. Enjoy its beauty, appreciate it. And also, stand to protect it. We only got one planet, better take good care of it.