Earth Day 1970: A Grassroots Moment that Sparked a Movement

Forty years later, the message still resonates on a planet threatened by global warming

21 April 2010

Earth Day 2010 Campaign Director Nate Byer speaking at the Global Day of Service event at the National Mall, Washington, D.C.

April 22nd is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, an occasion for people to celebrate and raise awareness of the natural world.

Today with news of melting glaciers, increasingly severe droughts, floods, and storms and rising ocean levels, Earth Day celebrants around the world are marking the anniversary with new calls to combat global warming and to protect our threatened environment.

In the years leading up to that first Earth Day in 1970, many Americans felt growing concerns about unchecked air and water pollution and the destruction of forests and other important ecosystems around the planet.

World in trouble

Twenty-five-year-old Harvard law student and first Earth Day national coordinator Denis Hayes says obvious signs pointed to the sad state of the environment.

"In Los Angeles, for simply breathing, it was the equivalent of smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. We had rivers that were catching on fire, lakes that were dying. The national emblem the American eagle was on the verge of extinction."

NASAView of Earth as photographed by the Apollo 8 astronauts on their return trip from the moon in December 1968.