THE theme for this year is “Invest in our Planet.” Here is the origin story of Earth Day and how it came to be celebrated on April 22.
Every year, April 22 is celebrated as Earth Day, an annual event where people take time out to demonstrate their support for protecting the planet and its environment. For 2023, the theme for Earth Day is “Invest in our planet,” calling for people and businesses to work together towards building a healthy economy for the planet.
Earth Day 2023: Invest in our planet
According to EarthDay.org, which coordinates Earth Day events globally, the theme for the 2023 Earth Day calls on humanity to build a healthier economy while also making sure we work towards a more equitable future for everyone.
For this to happen, businesses, inventors, investors, and financial markets should lead the way by encouraging green innovation and practices. The private sector holds incredible power that can be wielded to bring about significant large-scale changes.
Governments must also do their part by incentivising citizens, businesses and other institutions to work towards this framework of an equitable and sustainable global system. Individual citizens of the planet can do their part with their votes and their wallets—by voting for politics that puts environmental conservation at the forefront and by buying from businesses that do the same.
What is Earth Day, and how did it come about?
The first Earth day was celebrated more than 50 years ago on April 22, 1970. In a 2019 interview with Time, Denis Hayes, the man who organised the first Earth Day, explained how the event came to be.
A number of environmental issues came to the forefront of public debate in the late 60s. Rachel Carson published her seminal book Silent Spring in 1962, which could be thought of as the “first shot in the war over the environment.”
Not long after, in 1969, the Santa Barbara oil spill brought about visual imagery of environmental destruction to people. They saw animals covered in oil and saw them die on camera. Decades before the Bellandur lake in Bengaluru began routinely catching fire, in 1969, the Cuyahoga River in the United States caught fire.
The seemingly dystopian imagery of water set ablaze added fuel to the fire of a public outcry over environmental destruction. All of this was also happening at a time when America was building massive interstate highways when even people who were not environmental activists were raising concerns about their neighbourhoods being polluted by the tailpipe emissions of cars.
They selected the date of April 22 because, according to The Weather Channel, it was the “perfect intersection of fair springtime weather and suitability for a college student’s semester schedule.”
A large number of the team working with the senator and Hayes were college students, and April 22 in 1970 fell on a Wednesday, which was the middle of the week, meaning that most college students would be on campus. The event was a wild success with more than 20 million Americans participating, according to some estimates.
That date stuck, and we now celebrate Earth Day on April 22 every year, irrespective of which day of the week it falls on.- Indian Express
