Celebrating Planet Earth

“Some River! Chocolate-brown, oily, bubbling with subsurface gases, it oozes rather than flows” – TIME Magazine 

Not for the first time, the Cayahoga River caught on fire on June 22, 1969.  But this time it was a call to action for U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson who began organizing an environmental teach-in to be known as Earth Day.  Nelson managed to fuse environmental concerns with the anti-Vietnam campus radicalism of the day and created a grassroots movement.  The first Earth Day was a protest about the damage that was being inflicted on the environment by industrial society.

By 1990 Earth Day became an international phenomenon with activities in 170 nations calling for environmental solutions, actions and celebrations.  Two million Canadians joined in the global event, and the day has evolved into Earth Month, reflecting the growing number of events and projects put on each year. 

Earth Day … it rhymes with Birthday.