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About the USA    

About the USA is a digital collection of background resources on american society, culture, and political processes. In addition to featuring selected websites, it provides access to documents in full text format (E-Texts) on topics ranging from the history of German-American relations, government and politics to travel, holidays and sports. About the USA is maintained by the Information Resource Centers/U.S. Diplomatic Mission to Germany. usa.usembassy.de

In Focus: Earth Day and the Rise of Environmental Consciousness

Earth Day, April 22, is the annual celebration of the environment and a time to assess the work still needed to protect the natural gifts of our

A great blue heron spears its dinner while hunting in Ever- glades National Park. (© AP Images)

planet. Earth Day has no central organizing force behind it though several nongovernmental organizations work to keep track of the thousands of local events in schools and parks that mark the day. Earth Day is observed around the world, although nowhere is it a national holiday. In the United States, it affirms that environmental awareness is part of the country's consciousness and that the idea of protecting the environment - once the province of a few conservationists - has moved from the extreme to the mainstream of American thought.

This was not always the case. In the 19th century Americans, blessed with a vast land rich in natural resources, lived with the notion that fresh fields were always just over the horizon. When one exhausted the soil or forests or coal of a given place it was possible to move on to another. As industry boomed in the early 20th century people accepted without question skies blackened from smokestack emissions and rivers fouled with industrial waste.

During the 1960s public attitudes began to change. In 1969 the U.S. Congress passed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), declaring a "national policy which will encourage productive and enjoyable harmony between man and his environment."

Environmental activist Dennis Hayes, then head of Environ- ment  Teach-In, Inc., works on the first Earth Day in April, 1970. Hayes and then Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson are the co-founders of Earth Day, first held April 22, 1970. (©AP Images)

Concurrent with this slow building of environmental awareness was the increasingly vocal opposition to U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam. Gaylord Nelson, a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin and a long time conservationist, was one who understood that the methods developed for use in the anti-war protest could succeed in other areas as well. "At the time," Nelson later wrote, "there was a great deal of turmoil on the college campuses over the Vietnam War. Protests, called anti-war teach-ins, were being widely held on campuses across the nation.... It suddenly occurred to me, why not have a nationwide teach-in on the environment? That was the origin of Earth Day."

Groundbreaking federal legislation followed the success of the first Earth Day. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was established in 1970, followed by the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act of 1972, and the Endangered Species Act of 1973.

Then, in the wake of this legislative success, Earth Day seemed to disappear. Though annual celebrations continued, they failed to match the size and enthusiasm of the first year. Earth Day seemed to have become a relic of the protest days of the early 1970s. 

Students from the Sanislo Elemtary School in Seattle, Washington, run to plant trees as part of a nationwide effort to break the Guiness World Record for most trees planted in an hour, April 22, 205. (© AP Images)

Earth Day came back in a big way in 1990. The 25th anniversary of the first Earth Day in 1995 was a time to assess environmental progress. In Western countries the news seemed good - air and water were cleaner, forests were expanding and many other environmental indicators were up as well. The sometimes volatile combination of legislation, lawsuits brought by NGOs, public education and more efficient business practices had made a noticeable and positive effect on the condition of the environment.

Earth Day, and the awareness it embodies, continues today. What began in 1970 as a protest movement has evolved into a global celebration of the environment and commitment to its protection. The history of Earth Day mirrors the growth of environmental awareness over the last three decades, and the legacy of Earth Day is the certain knowledge that the environment is a universal concern.

Full Text: see America.gov

Last updated: April 14, 2008