Earth Day: A Pledge For a Better Tomorrow | Ocean Casino Resort

Every year on April 22, people around the world come together in support of an extremely important cause: to raise awareness about the wide-ranging environmental impacts of industrialization and ignite widespread change that puts the planet first. 

At Ocean Casino Resort, we’re proud to be among the millions of worldwide organizations that rally behind the public to recognize and bolster this necessary global movement. With Earth Day 2023 fast approaching, we’re taking an in-depth look at the history of this vital tradition, from its origin as the brainchild of one U.S. senator to the planet’s biggest environmental movement.

The History of Earth Day

Although Earth Day is now a global movement that’s recognized by more than a billion people, it started as the altruistic vision of a single man: Gaylord Nelson, who served as a United States senator for three terms spanning from 1963 to 1981. 

In response to growing public awareness of environmental issues throughout the 1960s and a historic oil spill in Santa Barbara, California, in 1969, a concerned Nelson partnered with Congressman Pete McCloskey to plan a day of educational “teach-ins” at colleges and universities all over the country. Hoping to harness some of the energy and vigor of 60s-era, student-led anti-war movements, they drafted the activist Denis Hayes to help organize the event. 

Hayes quickly set about putting together a national staff and enlisting the help of varied institutions from businesses and nonprofit organizations to religious groups. On April 22, 1970, the inaugural Earth Day occurred, with 20 million Americans marching in streets, on campuses, and in public parks to bring attention to the most pressing environmental issues of the time, including:

• Factory and power plant pollution

• Oil spills

• Wilderness and wildlife decimation

• Run-off pollution from freeways, sewage, toxic dumps, and pesticide use 

As a first-of-its-kind event, Earth Day also helped unite a variety of groups that were already hard at work fighting to protect the planet.

The Ongoing Legacy of Earth Day

The very first Earth Day was a watershed moment for climate activism in the United States, helping to start a wave of public interest in environmentalism from coast to coast. As a social cause, it united Americans of all races, religions, and income brackets. And as a political issue, it garnered enthusiastic support on both sides of the aisle, with Republicans and Democrats voicing their support.

As such, the reverberations could be felt almost immediately. Over the next several years, the government responded with a spate of historic legislations that address the need for reform. Among the legislative acts directly credited to Earth Day are: 

• National Environmental Education Act

• Clean Air Act

• Clean Water Act

• Endangered Species Act

• Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act 

Twenty years later, in 1990, Earth Day went international, with 200 million people from over 140 countries participating in Earth Day demonstrations, protests, and other events. Aside from officially positioning environmental protection as a matter of global significance, this also led to the first-ever United Nations Earth Summit in 1992 and helped earn the movement’s founder Gaylord Nelson the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton. 

Earth Day in the 21st Century 

By the end of the 1990s, the approaching new millennium came with a battery of new environmental concerns, with climate change chief among them. Denis Hayes returned to reorient the movement’s focus around two crucial and linked contemporary concerns: the threat of global warming and the importance of sustainable, clean energy alternatives to fossil fuels 

In the 2010s, the Earth Day movement was reinvigorated with the launch of three separate projects:

• EarthDay.org – The official Earth Day website helps unite climate activists all over the globe, helping to educate, engage, and provide volunteer opportunities in nearly 200 countries. 

• A Billion Acts of Green – In 2012, the Earth Day organization secured one billion pledges of environmental protection from governments, businesses, and private citizens from every corner of the world. 

• The Canopy Project – Earth Day’s Canopy Project aims for global change on a local level by planting trees in local communities. Since launching in 2010, the Canopy Project has planted tens of millions of trees that serve as natural, healthy food sources. 

Now in its 53rd year, Earth Day enlists more than one billion people annually in the fight to save the planet.

Celebrate the Planet With Our Earth Day Sweepstakes

This year, you can get in on Earth Day festivities by entering Ocean Casino Resort’s Earth Day Sweepstakes. From April 3rd through the 21st, enter for your chance to win a custom-made Ocean Casino Resort Basil EarthBox. On Earth Day (April 22nd), we’ll announce 20 big winners, so don’t delay. 

Sources: 

EarthDay.org. The History of Earth Day. https://www.earthday.org/history/

EarthDay.org. A Billion Acts of Green. https://www.earthday.org/billion-acts-green-reduce-ecological-footprint/

EarthDay.org. The Canopy Project. https://www.earthday.org/campaign/the-canopy-project/