What is the Day Earth?
Earth Day, April 22, is an annual celebration of our shared environment and the time to assess the work still needed to protect the natural gifts of our planet.
Earth Day is a national holiday. While there is no central organization, many nongovernmental organizations working to register the thousands of local activities in schools and parks that mark the day.
Earth Day, April 22, is an annual celebration of our shared environment and the time to assess the work still needed to protect the natural gifts of our planet.
Earth Day is a national holiday. While there is no central organization, many nongovernmental organizations working to register the thousands of local activities in schools and parks that mark the day.
The Day the Earth says that the awareness towards the environment is part of the national consciousness and the idea of \u200b\u200bprotecting our environment, once the domain of a few conservationists, has moved from one extreme to the mainstream of American thought.
During the sixties, public attitudes began to change. In 1962, a marine biologist named Rachel Carzon published "Silent Spring", a title that referred to a future without birds and described in plain language devastating long-term effects of highly toxic pesticides and other chemicals commonly used in agriculture, industry and everyday by millions of Americans. The book surprisingly ranked among the best sellers. In 1968, the Apollo astronauts on their return flight to the moon orbiting pioneer, first photographed the planet Earth in its entirety. This image of Earth: small, fragile, beautiful and unique, it quickly became imprinted on the psyche of millions. In 1969, the flow in the River Industrial Cuyohoga again caused a fire. This time, the public reaction was immediate and intense. The people of Cleveland, Ohio, where the fire occurred, became the laughingstock, and the satirical song "Burn On, Big River, Burn On "(Burn, big river, burn) was heard on radio stations across the country. That same year, the United States Congress enacted the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), declaring a national policy to encourage harmony productive and enjoyable between man and his environment.
Parallel to this slow environmental awareness, there was a growing opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. The public demonstrations against the war, particularly those in the universities, promoted the ideas of individual actions would make a difference, and that organized challenges to the status quo that could actually change politics and public behavior.
Gaylord Nelson, then Senator from Wisconsin and longtime conservationist, was one of the people who understood that the methods developed for the protest against the war might well be effective in other areas. "At that time," Nelson wrote, "there was great unrest in the universities because of the war in Vietnam. There were anti-war protests called classes throughout schools across the nation. On a flight from Santa Barbara University of California at Berkeley, I read an article on such classes, and suddenly I thought: Why not take a class national environment? here is the origin of Earth Day "
grasped this idea, Nelson returned to Washington in August 1969 and began promoting Earth Day among governors, mayors of major cities, editors of college newspapers and, More importantly, in the academic journal, which circulates in the primary and secondary schools across the country. In September, Nelson formally announced that there would be a nationwide class on the environment in the spring of 1970. then narrated what happened to below
"cable services broadcast the item across the country. The response was overwhelming. Acted as officials suppress organized crime. Telegrams, letters and phone calls poured in from around the country.
With the help of Senate staff, I conducted activities on Earth Day outside of my office. By December, the movement had expanded so rapidly that it became necessary to open an office in Washington to serve as a national center for information sharing and address questions and activities relating to Earth Day. At that point, I hired Denis Hayes and others to coordinate the effort.
Earth Day achieved what I craved. The aim was to demonstrate a concern as great for the environment at the national level, which shook the political arena. It was a risky move, but it worked. Twenty million people participated in peaceful demonstrations across the country. Ten thousand students and high school students, two thousand colleges and a thousand communities participated.
really was an amazing explosion popular. People are worried and Earth Day became the first opportunity they had ever had to join a national demonstration to send a strong message to politicians: the message to awaken and do something.
worked by the spontaneous and enthusiastic response at the grassroots level. Had anything like happened before. While our organization in schools was pretty good, the thousands of activities in our schools and communities are generated locally. We did not have neither the time nor the resources to organize the ten thousand students and high school students and a thousand communities participated. Simply organized themselves. That's remarkable Earth Day. "
A federal law took the revolutionary success of the first Earth Day. In 1970 the Environmental Protection Agency, followed by the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act 1972 and the Law of Endangered Species in 1973. Among the more ambitious provisions of these laws is the requirement that automobiles use unleaded gasoline, adhere to a minimum miles per gallon of gasoline and are equipped with catalytic converters that reduce the amount of toxic fumes emitted by the exhaust pipes of vehicles.
Earth Day seemed to disappear. Although the annual celebrations continued, they failed to match the size and enthusiasm of the first year. Earth Day had become a relic of the protests of the early seventies.
However, the flash of awareness generated by the first Earth Day continued to grow. Grassroots organizations now called non-governmental organizations or NGOs, increased in size and power. Groups such as Greenpeace, formed in Canada in 1971, adapted the principles of nonviolent civil disobedience to create public awareness about the dwindling whale population and the risks of nuclear energy. Nature Conservancy, established in 1951, was rededicated in the early seventies to the preservation of natural diversity and began to buy undeveloped land for nature conservation.
Venerable institutions such as Sierra Club and National Audubon Society filed energetic processes against logging companies to slow the destruction forest for many years. Non-governmental organizations, funded by public input and made up of lawyers and educators as well as scientists and naturalists, they became vigilantes energetic environment, while educating the public and to prosecute companies and governments to force them to comply with legislation that regulates everything from the stack emissions and water quality, to the natural habitats of endangered species.
At home, Americans, often urged by their children, began to separate household waste for recycling. In the late eighties, programs were established recycling in many communities. In the mid-nineties, these municipal programs and surrendered compensation: the amount of waste which was emptied in landfills was in sharp decline, and more than 20% of municipal waste in the United States turned into useful products.
Corporations, quite conscious of the desires of the consumer and the framework of profits, began to promote itself as a consistent environment, proudly using recycled material in its packaging and commercial broadcast television that talked about their achievements protection of the Earth. More important was the adoption by many companies in business practices that increased gross v efficiency decreased the amount of industrial waste. Spurred by consumer NGOs, forced by law to comply with standards for quality of air and water, and finally to realize that new methods could indeed be profitable, the private sector accepted its role in management environment.
In 1990, Earth Day was recovered. Led by Denis Hayes, chief organizer of the first Earth Day, the year 1990 was international, and involved companies, ethnic minorities and government officials. Over 200 million people around the world, ten times more than in 1970, participated in activities recognized that the environment had become, finally, a subject of public interest and universal. The global momentum continued in 1992 at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where an unprecedented number of governments and NGOs key documents prepared for the sustainable development of economies now and in the future.
In 1995, witnessed the XXV anniversary of the first Earth Day was a time to assess environmental progress in the last quarter century. In Western countries, the news seemed good: air and water were cleaner, forests were expanding and many environmental indicators also were on the rise. Undoubtedly, the sometimes volatile combination of legislation, lawsuits brought by NGOs, public education and more efficient business practices, had achieved a noticeable and positive effect on the state of the environment.
How good this news was really depended on who you ask. "The laws (the environment) ... along with countless private efforts encouraged by the environmental awareness ... have been a stunning success," wrote the reporter Gregg Easterbrook in The New Yorker. "In both the U.S. and Europe, environmental trends are mostly positive, and regulations environmental, rather than being heavy and expensive, have proved quite effective, have cost less than expected and strengthened, not weakened, the economies of the Overseas countries that applied. "Environment Magazine, led by a major NGO, gave a more somber assessment: "The Day the Earth ... and has created a permanently active citizenry nor transformed the general malaise that undermines faith in democratic accountability. Although the environmental movement has made great strides since 1970, institutionally as well as in public consciousness, environmental security in the form of fair treatment and provision of basic needs for all remains more elusive than 25 years ago. "
The kaleidoscope of activities planned for Earth Day 1997 reflects this powerful fusion of democratic practices towards the environment. The Idaho State University in Pocatello, Idaho, is organizing a weeklong festival with a Ecoferia food, music and exhibitions, forums (topics include "Environmental Health: Air quality and water in Pocatello" and "How to Save the Earth with technology to clean up the environment"), programs Schools for children and adults, and walks in natural areas. The students from Hermon High School in Hermon, Maine, conducted workshops on the future of salmon Atlantic in Maine, visit a dam which helps this species on their way upstream and release it in a local stream where they breed with the help of students.
a larger scale, the annual Festival Earth Day Contra Costa County, held near San Francisco, California, is the most successful event in Northern California and is funded by ticket sales and donations from the media local media, businesses, government agencies and NGOs. This year there will live music on three stages, thematic areas weather forecast, endangered birds and electric cars, amount of food and environmentally sound. Are expected to attend more than 20,000 people.
Globally, the National Parks and Conservation (NPCA) contributes to citizen groups in the U.S. and abroad to organize March for Parks events that directly benefit their local parks, state and national. Organize walks in rural and urban areas to raise funds. The money raised goes to local parks and restoration projects. Originally concluded in 1990, past projects include repair of buildings and historic trails, planting trees and landscaping, cleaning sponsorship of parks and programs recycling, and land acquisition for new parks. Organizers report that the 1997 March for Parks raised approximately two million dollars for community parks, involving more than one million people, and was the largest national event of Earth Day. 50 states held marches and nine countries participated for a total of 1,200 marches around the world: the biggest ever. The countries involved were Russia, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Costa Rica, Brazil, Argentina, Sweden, Finland and Spain.
Earth Day, which began in 1970 as a protest movement has evolved into a global celebration of the environment and our commitment to their protection. The history of Earth Day mirrors the growth of environmental consciousness over the past quarter century, and the legacy of Earth Day is the clear notion that the environment is the subject of universal concern.
"Never forget, if you want the nation to take major decisions on policy issues that the people are the source of power. With it you can do anything without it, nothing." Gaylord Nelson, Founder of Earth Day
By Tim Brown / United States Information Agency
From: http://www.eco2site.com/informes/dia-tierra.asp
From: http://www.eco2site.com/informes/dia-tierra.asp
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