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Following a growing social unrest during the Vietnam era, many people began to recognize how industrialization and urban encroachment was impacting the Earthīs environment. In September 1969, Senator Gaylord Nelson, a democrat from Wisconson, announced a program to educate Americans about the environment. He selected April 22 to coincide with a relatively quiet period on university campuses (a period after mid-terms and before finals), because it didnīt conflict with other holidays, and because the weather was nice enough to stage protests outdoors. He initially called it a National Environmental Teach-in as a play on words to the popularized "sit-in" form of protest. The press called it Earth Day, a name that worked better and stuck.
Senator Nelson also hired Denis Hayes, a Harvard School graduate, to promote it nationally. The first year, an estimated 20 million people, mainly school children and college students, participated all over the nation. It promoted sustainability as much as it raised awareness about the deterioration of the environment. It quickly became a unifying event and rallying cry for disparate environmental protestors. Its message is is broad covering sustainability, pollution, extinction, urbanization, healthy lifestyles, and green technologies. It raises awareness against oil spills, landfills, pollution, deforestation, and other environmental causes.
Many important environmental acts ultimately resulted (and continue to result from) the Earth Day celebrations including The Clean Air Act (1970), the Environmental Protection Agency (1971), Clean Water Act (1972), Endangered Species Act (1973), and others. It has continued to grow in popularity in the United States and around the world. It is estimated that more than one billion people celebrate it each year in virtually every corner of the globe.
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