On April 22, 1970, the first observation of Earth Day took
place, a massive series of gatherings, demonstrations and
discussions across the U.S. that many credit as the birth of the
modern environmental movement. An oil spill off the California
coast was the event that triggered U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson
to launch Earth Day – but concerns about environmental health
and the detrimental effects of industrialization were growing,
over issues such as pesticide use, oil spills, poor air quality,
pollution, loss of wilderness to development and declining
biodiversity. Heralded as a resounding success, the first Earth
Day resulted in the implementation of a number of U.S.
environmental policies, and the movement quickly went global.
Yet today, the environmental challenges we face dwarf those that
touched off that first celebration. And the planet we honor on
Earth Day is a far different place from that of just four
decades ago. World population has almost doubled, from 3.7
billion to 6.9 billion. The amount of lan