Earth Day is an annual event held on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First celebrated in 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally by earthday.org including 1 billion people in more than 193 countries.
The official theme for 2023 is “Invest In Our Planet,” calling for businesses, governments, and citizens to invest in a better future for the planet. According to the United Nations, “The Earth is facing a triple planetary crisis: climate disruption, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste.”
Earth Day was founded by Senator Gaylord Nelson, who was inspired to create a day focused on the environment after witnessing the ravages of the 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. He recruited Denis Hayes to organize campus teach-ins and they chose April 22, a weekday falling between Spring Break and Final Exams, to maximize student participation.
Today, Earth Day is widely recognized as the largest secular observance in the world, marked by more than a billion people every year as a day of action to change human behavior and create global, national and local policy changes.
