Earth Day and Its History By: C.J. Ellis

Ah, A year with many ups and downs, including the Beatles’ last album, the death of Jimi Hendrix, the release of Simon and Garfunkel’s number 1 hit “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, and the occurrence of the Vietnam War. But the most important event that year was the creation of Earth Day. The idea was brought to people’s attention by U.S. senator from Wisconsin, Gaylord Nelson. He was inspired to do something about the ridiculous amount of energy used at the time. No one paid attention to how much fuel their v8 sedans were slurping up and no one seemed to panic about the massive oil spill in Santa Barbara in But something needed to be done, so Gaylord stepped up to the plate. He gathered many people to promote eco-friendly activities, and on April 22, over 20 million people marched the streets of the U.S. protesting the environment’s deterioration. On that day, Earth Day was born.

The tradition of Earth Day has continued this year. Here’s a look at what some people are doing this year for Earth Day in America. In Queens, New York a festival on Earth Day was designed to be family-friendly experience with garden tours, planting workshops, and other eco-friendly activities. In North Canton, Ohio, Kent State University is hosting its annual Earth Day festival. They are having many nature walks and educational environment activities. Corpus Christi, Texas is having the annual Earth Day-Bay Day festival to encourage the citizens of the area to learn about local wetlands, native organisms, recycling, etc. In Seattle, the 35 th Carkeek Park Earth Day event is happening. They are having a beach cleanup, trail restoration, and many more activities for Earth Day.

Helping our environment and participating in Earth Day festivities is easy. You don’t have to do much, but small tasks like planting flowers, turning off lights in rooms when you leave them, and picking up garbage all will make an impact on the environment. Oh, and how about that phrase “reduce, reuse, recycle”? I think that one is a no-brainer! These tasks reduce pollution and make habitats for animals and our environment eco-friendly. Orlando is getting in on the fun too. Here’s a look at what they are doing for Earth Day. The 10 th annual Central Florida Earth Day 2015 was from 10:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. at Lake Eola Park. The event was going to occur, rain or shine, and was organized by Vegetarians of Central Florida.

Thank goodness for Earth Day, because it helps remind society about the main environmental issues in our generation and how we can prevent these issues. The most important issue, in my opinion, is pollution. Pollution “dirties” our air we breathe and our water. It can cause fish to die and makes our environment not so eco-friendly. In fact, over 100,000 sea animals die and 1,000,000 seabirds die every year because of pollution. Not only does it affect animals, it affects us too. Over 100 million people are affected by pollution. That is comparable to HIV and Malaria! Is that still not enough to make you stop polluting our environment? Well, around 40% of all of the United State’s lakes are so polluted, we can’t go fishing or swimming in them, and animals can’t even live there! Thankfully, kids in the U.S. aren’t the most affected kids in any country by pollution. Over 1,000 kinds in India die EACH DAY due to disease through polluted water. That’s about 650,000 kids a year that die in India. That is too many! Finally, would you like to know how much garbage is dumped into our environment every year to create this pollution? How about a whopping 14 billion pounds? Does that make you happy America? If it doesn’t, I suggest you stop littering and recycle some more. Then we might not have any more concerns about having clean water. I believe I have a reason to think pollution may be the most important environmental issue.

Littering is also a very important issue with the environment. The only reason littering and issue number three aren’t the most important is because they are branches of pollution. Did you know that 11.5 billion dollars each year are wasted just to clean up litter? All that money could be spent on useful things, but instead is used for picking up litter because America is too lazy to throw something away. Oh, and remember that stat about 14 billion pounds of garbage being dumped in our environment every year? Well, about 9 billion of those pounds are dumped in the oceans of Earth. That is way too much litter! If you claim to be innocent to littering, you’re probably lying. About 75% of the world admits they littered in the last 5 years. And I’m not saying seniors and children don’t litter, but most of this information is directed to all you young adults out their. The majority of people who deliberately litter are between the ages If littering is cut down dramatically, that pollution amount will reduce greatly. It all starts with waiting to get out of the car or getting up out of your lawn chair and throwing away that granola bar wrapper.

This is just as important of a problem as the other two. The demand for coal, oil, and hydroelectric energy have reached a record high since We need to conserve more energy. Thankfully, one of these demanded sources is renewable, and decently healthy for the environment. Thankfully, we aren’t the largest energy gobblers in the world. China’s energy consumption went up a whopping 11.2%, bumping the U.S. from the top spot. But the greatest climb in energy consumption since 2000 through 2010 was Vietnam, going up an astounding 148%. Coal’s demand is at 30% because of the Chinese again. This is going in the wrong direction. So if we want to make Earth a cleaner, healthier environment, we need to stop these issues. As long as Earth Day festivals are encouraging people, we can solve the problems. Happy Earth Day 2015!

Stateswww.earthday.org/greencities/events about-littering/ about-littering energy/#.VUEmW7dOXcswww.usfunds.com/slideshows/facts-about-global- energy