Highs and lows on the day of earth-moving develop

Highs and lows on the day of earth-moving develop

The Day the Earth

42, on 22 April is not a birthday round for those who celebrate the annual event to raise awareness of environmental issues, but each approach in the recent past, the spirit of his The first Earth Day in the United States 1970 instead.

This is because, like its predecessor, the organizers of Earth Day activities this year was done by popular protests around the world inspired the choice of the slogan “mobilize the earth” as the theme for Earth Day 2012 .

“This year it was a lot of political activities all over the world – the Middle East to fill … movement,” said Kathleen Rogers, president of the Washington, DC-based Earth Day Network .

“For the year 2012, we felt we had to mobilize as a concept really critical, because people understand that they actually go on, can actually do something.”

Rogers Group works with thousands of organizations and governments in nearly 20 0 countries to promote and organize activities for Earth Day and environmental awareness to increase throughout the year. It was the group that organized the first Earth Day has developed and is still one of the founders of the movement, Denis Hayes , its Board of Directors. Inspired

protests against the war, the first Earth Day

Gaylord Nelson, one of the main goals of the preservation of his two terms as governor of Wisconsin and went on to issues of environmental samples in the Senate of the United States, the organize the first Earth Day in 1970. class = (Alex Wong / Getty Images)

founder Gaylord Nelson , a Democratic senator from Wisconsin who has earned a reputation as a passionate environmentalist during his two terms as Governor of the State, was struck by the passion driving the protest movement. He modeled the first Earth Day teach-in on anti-war activists who were held on college campuses to educate students about American involvement in the Vietnam War.

Nelson, who died in 2005, made the organizer and his companions environmental issues at the center of their “national teach-ins”, and there was a lot of focus on in 1970.

industrialization and urban sprawl, air pollution had been a problem in many large American cities, the harmful effects of DDT and other pesticides were also in the public consciousness since the 1962 publication of the seminal book Silent S pring by Rachel Carson , and two high-profile events in 1969, industrial pollution and its impact on the environment high on the

.

The two episodes were a blow-out on a Union Oil drilling platform off the coast of Santa Barbara, the 11.4 million gallons of oil were lost in the sea, angering Californians who saw the devastating effects on their beaches and have attracted marine life, and a focus on the heavily polluted Cuyahoga River at Cleveland, the attention has industrial waste that has had it for years, was canceled in the watercourse.

blockquote = “> “One of the main objectives of the workshop was to tie all these different strands of the environmental movement … with a bow and let them know that they are part of a are coherent motion “ -. Denis Hayes, founder of Earth Day

Hayes, who was the national coordinator of first Earth Day events in 1970 and is involved in Earth Day activities and the environmental movement.

“One of the main objectives of the workshop was to tie all these different strands of the environmental movement – people who were concerned about pesticides to fight the human highways, people, air pollution hated people who fear that the rivers have been caught on fire – they tie it all together with a bow and let them know that they are part of a coherent movement, “said Hayes, who now heads the Bullitt Foundation, a Seattle-based environmental organization

. 1970-event triggered landmark legislation

A tractor fire flames injected at the Cuyahoga in Cleveland 25th June 1952, advised by oil and other industr ial waste in a fire. A similar fire broke out in 1969 and prompted widespread public anger at the proliferation of industrial pollution in U.S. cities. (Associated Press)

For this, the creation of Environmental Protection Agency is one and the adoption of the Clean Air Act in the same year, the adoption of the Clean Water Act in 1972 and the passage of Endangered Species Act of 1973.

“I would be hard to think that legislation in the last ten years, which begins to approximate the kinds of innovative things that we had in the period from 1970 to 1975,” said Hayes.

The environmental laws in 1970, passed in Canada, the Canada passed Water Act in 1970 and created a Department for the Environment in 1971 was revolutionary in part because the issues of environmental protection in the context of public health, Rogers says.

“The first Earth Day, the laws were all about the survival of the species – in the first place [hunters to make sure could] shoot – or protection of the area as a national park,” he said. “Earth Day 1970 is definitely the Maginot Line , who was there, and everything has crossed to the health and the people, not animals and shot, and parks. It’s all about the people become other. “

Although it is difficult to establish a direct line between the Earth’s day of the following decades, and substantial changes in environmental legislation, the day has remained as a factor in environmental education and awareness relevant.

1990 on behavior changes

students assemble a five-storey globe on the National Mall in Washington, DC, in preparation for the 25th Anniversary of the focused Earth Day in 1995. The 90s saw the passage of environmental movement that is changing from an attempt to change the federal law on individual behavior. (Joyce Naltchayan / AFP / Getty Images)

“In 1990 he began the transition from focusing on large portions of federal legislation for the role of states and, more importantly, the community, and beyond that the individuals,” said Hayes. “The overall theme was:” Who says he can not save the world? “-. Trying to be rich, but to tell people that get this all just a matter of convention, some laws have to do this with your consumer choices, your decisions as to pass a car and house, your decision-owner. as parents, “

The conversion to environmental protection as a personal responsibility, it worked: between 1988 and 1992, the number of curbside recycling

class=”photo left”> A plant worker a mangrove tree in a garden conservation in Jakarta, Indonesia, on the occasion of Earth Day 2009. These days, Earth Day is very much a global issue, with almost 200 participating countries. (Dadang Tri / Reuters)

Nineteen-90 was also the year that the activities of Earth Day went global, expanding to more than 140 countries, including Canada.

Today, Earth Day Network regularly works with groups and governments in countries as far away as Oman, Morocco and Jamaica, the organization of environmental education in schools and help meet the locals, their unique environmental concerns.

each jurisdiction during Schneider’s Earth Day activities around the problems of this region, those who participate, says Rogers, see themselves as part of a “global public good of the environment.”

“The pollution in China is taking Los Angeles at 48 to 50 hours, depending on the winds,” he said. “People get what you are doing in Brazil affect our oxygen – my own or my children ‘- and link them to environmental protection prod ucts This is the big change significantly for the 21st century, we get what is happening around the world . “. Come

Climate Change

Enigma

In over 40 years, Earth Day is to not even dream with all sorts of things, the designers are associated. And while it has always taken a variety of activities from litter pick-up and the school composting programs for large urban congregations in recent years, been increasingly used as an excuse to display products or “greenwashing” companies and governments who sell otherwise not only for the environment. (China, despite his recent embrace of renewable energy and green technologies has an abysmal environmental record has issued a stamp in the annual Earth Day, for example).

A crowd gathered on Parliament Hill to celebrate Earth Day, 22 A pril 1990, the first year, celebrated the Earth Day Canada. (Frank Gunn / Canadian Press)

Hayes, 67, is in Earth Day activities on the National Mall in Washington, 22 April this year to participate and says call “mobilize” the people are well.

“2000, a little ‘have much to my surprise, extremely division in environmental issues,” said Hayes.

The 21th century, says Hayes, is trying environmentalists pitted sound the alarm about climate change against those in industry and government is campaigning to minimize the threat to discredit science and protection of economic interests dependent on fossil fuels

Denis Hayes, a founder of Earth Day speaks at a rally condemning the environmental policies of U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington, DC (Alex Wong / Newsmakers) < / span>

” In 1970 we spoke of poison. In 2000, we tend to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons speak . ‘Poison’, it is more effective to say, and we are trying to play in, re-learn how to communicate well with people. “

have today, the organizers of Earth Day – bring not as successful in humans to about global issues like climate change concerns have been, as the instigator of Earth of the Day 1970, they were about to lead – and the environmental movement in general to air and water pollution concerns that could admittedly become global problems more easily performed on site.

“People are more in the way, have the political consequences if they committed to see it affecting them or their families” said Hayes. ” The people of the world’s future is concerned, but that’s kind of an abstract concept. “

Hayes says that’s changing as more and more people are beginning to understand that climate change is not on hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts and fires that occur in their communities

an Arab Spring for air

As part

related efforts to mobilize public opinion to address climate change, planning some U.S. environmental groups, an important initiative in 2013 concerning the involvement of young people through social media and crowdsourcing ideas on green technology, renewable energy and other means to mitigate the base run factors that contribute to climate change.

The goal, says Hayes, the “creation is a huge public consensus-building exercise that will hopefully have some political consequences. “

” In a sense, is a spring climatic Arab, “Hayes said.” The weather was primarily a problem of Television. It is something that people preach to other people or to go in case of the film by Al Gore and offers a view movie, and you and look. But it is a kind of computer problem that you are involved and committed to do something themselves.

“What do we try to make this transition, it is not just passive recipients of information, but people who engage in it, things will be a challenge and to act based on their growing understanding of required what really is going on “