... a moment in time ...

Why Is April 22 Earth Day?

Every day, the saying goes, is Earth Day. But it's popularly celebrated on April 22. Why?  One persistent rumor holds that April 22 was chosen because it's the birthday of Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union.

"Lenin's goal was to destroy private property and this goal is obviously shared by environmentalists," according to a 2004 Capitalism Magazine article perpetuating the theory. Likewise, shortly after the first Earth Day, a Daughters of the American Revolution member lamented to Time magazine, "Subversive elements plan to make American children live in an environment that is good for them." The Earth Day Network's Rogers, though, scoffed at the rumored communist connection.

April 22, 1970, was chosen for the first Earth Day in part because it fell on a spring Wednesday—ideal for encouraging a large turnout, especially of college students, for an environmental event held across the United States.

"It worked out perfectly, because everybody was at work and they all left," she said. In fact, more than 20 million people across the U.S. were estimated to have participated in that first Earth Day. Nopw, more than a billion people in 180 countries around the world now celebrate Earth Day every year.

Roots of Earth Day

Earth Day's history is rooted in the 1960s, when the environment was in visible ruins and people were angry, according to Rogers. "It wasn't uncommon in some cities during rush hour to be standing on a street corner and not be able to see across the street" because of pollution, she said. Despite the anger, green issues were absent from the U.S. political agenda. This frustrated U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, whose campaigns for the environment through much of the 1960s had fallen flat. Rivers were catching fire, the sludge and debris dumped by factories igniting with the slightest spark. In a midsize city like Portland, Ore., people were breathing air that polluted their lungs at the same level as smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. Forests were being leveled at an alarming rate, pesticides were clogging farmland and beaches were littered with dangerous waste. By the time Ohio's Cuyahoga River combusted in 1968, the 10th time in less than a century, people were ready to move the small, grassroots "conservation" effort into the mainstream.

In 1969 Nelson hit on the idea of an environmental protest modeled after anti-Vietnam War demonstrations called teach-ins."It took off like gangbusters. Telegrams, letters, and telephone inquiries poured in from all across the country," Nelson recounted in an essay shortly before he died in July 2005 at 89.

"The American people finally had a forum to express its concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes, and air—and they did so with spectacular exuberance." 

The very first Earth Day, in April 1970, was a grassroots protest. It was a nationwide, coordinated effort of teach-ins, speeches and picket signs in true '60s fashion. In fact, many organizers of Earth Day 1970 had learned their craft in the antiwar movement, and they applied the lessons to a new foe: pollution and destruction of the environment. Nelson recruited activist Denis Hayes to organize the April 22, 1970, Earth Day teach-in, which today is sometimes credited for launching the modern environmental movement. By the end of 1970, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had been born, and efforts to improve air and water quality were gaining political traction. "It was truly amazing what happened," Earth Day Network's Rogers said. "Blocks just tumbled."

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 p/s... it's no wonder Earth Day has changed over the years. The '60s and '70s were a time that can't be replicated.