Meet the USA
About the USA
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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
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| A great blue heron spears its dinner while hunting in glades (© AP Images) |
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) |
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, 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



