Spotlight: Earth Day

Someone once said, “Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”

The Four Laws of Ecology are: Everything is connected to everything else, everything must go somewhere, Nature knows best, and there is no such thing as free lunch. But let us focus on how everything is connected to each other. By now, I think we all have a grasp on what this means. Nothing on this Earth stands alone. We all know that there is only one Earth – one ecosphere that all organisms live in. But is it true that what we do affects other things?

It’s true and can be explained in many ways such as the food chain or web. Each species is just a part of a web – a link in a chain. It begins with plants which are eaten by herbivores, such as rabbits, which are eaten by carnivores, such as owls. When they die, decomposers such as fungi break down them down. When a strand of a web has changed or has been altered, the other strands have to adjust or adapt.

This shows us that what we do here on Earth affects some things either drastically or not. A lot of environmental issues have emerged in the past few years -- and most of them may or may not affect us in the future. That is why we must be aware of the environment and to preserve it as soon as possible. This is one of the reasons Earth Day was established.

Earth Day is an annual event held on April 22 to spread awareness and appreciation for the environment. It all started with Gaylord Nelson, a senator from Wisconsin, who had the idea for Earth Day after seeing the news of the oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. He envisioned a large-scale, grassroots environmental demonstration "to shake up the political establishment and force this issue onto the national agenda” (History.com). He announced his idea to the media and persuaded people such as Pete McCloskey to be his co-chair and Denis Hayes the national coordinator.

As a result of the combined efforts of these three, on April 22, 1970, people flooded the streets in order to protest against the deteriorating environment. Different universities, organizations and individuals protested against polluting factories, oil spills and loss of wilderness, to name a few. This day became a rare political alignment; people from different statuses or positions (Republicans and Democrats, farmers and city slickers, tycoons and labor leaders) came together as one in order to support the environment. Furthermore, this day also led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts.

Twenty years later, Denis Hayes was approached by environmentalists to organize another big campaign. In 1990, Earth Day became global, inviting more than 200 million people all over the world to partake in an event that aimed to increase awareness for the environment. This event boosted the efforts of a lot of people to recycle worldwide. Because of Nelson’s role as the founder of Earth Day, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995 by President Bill Clinton.

Decades later, Earth Day has become a global event millions of people in over 40 countries worldwide participate in. The challenge of having a cleaner environment still continues but more and more people have become open to what needs to be done in order to lessen the pollution in Earth. Some people organize tree planting events as their way of showing support for the Earth, something which has become popularized in the last ten years or so.

Like Bill Richardson once said, “We cannot accomplish all that we need to do without working together.” I invite all of you to partake in this wonderful event that aims to have a cleaner world. I invite you to be part of history – to help in changing the world for the better.

Special thanks to Fandango and aubs for editing!