GISetc is going GREEN this week in celebration of Earth Day! Every day this week we’ll be sharing resources about our wonderful planet.

We all care about our planet and celebrate earth day, but this year we wanted to share a bit about the history of the holiday for your students who are to young to remember why it came into existence. The Earth Day Network posted an extensive history of Earth Day here (excerpt below). We also posted the original news reports explaining Earth Day to the public…

The first Earth Day ~ April 22, 1970, NYC

 from the Earth Day Network: “The idea came to Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, after witnessing the ravages of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. Inspired by the student anti-war movement, he realized that if he could infuse that energy with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution, it would force environmental protection onto the national political agenda. Senator Nelson announced the idea for a ‘national teach-in on the environment’ to the national media; persuaded Pete McCloskey, a conservation-minded Republican Congressman, to serve as his co-chair; and recruited Denis Hayes as national coordinator. Hayes built a national staff of 85 to promote events across the land.

As a result, on the 22nd of April, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values.

Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, city slickers and farmers, tycoons and labor leaders. The first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts. ‘It was a gamble,’ Gaylord recalled, ‘but it worked.’ ”

At GISetc.com we curate and bring you the best geography and science resources from the web. We hope our sharing will keep you up to date on the latest science and geospatial news.

Article originally posted at: http://www.earthday.org/earth-day-history-movement by: Earth Day Network Video originally posted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbwC281uzUs