Everything You Need To Know About Earth Day

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Becca Carey Journalist

4 min readApr 22, 2021

What is it?

April 22nd is Earth Day and in case that means next to nothing to you, I have spent the last couple of days on TikTok explaining what it is, why you should care and how you can get involved.

A little bit of history

Earth Day began over 50 years ago, in 1970, and this is what we understand as the birth of the modern environmental movement.

At the time, this guy- Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson was impressed with the advances of the student anti-war movement that he wanted to create something similar to raise awareness on climate issues.

Nelson brought together the influential political figures with young political activists on this date since it was between Spring Break and exams, wanting to ensure as many people involved as possible.

And from then on, change happened pretty quickly. The US Environmental Protection Agency was set up, several environmental laws were passed- including the Environmental Education and Clean Air Acts.

And over 50 years later, it’s still going strong involving over 1 billion people from 190 countries all celebrating the birth of a movement and campaigning for further action.

Why is it so important?

Now that you know what Earth Day is all about, why should you care? I hope that you already do care to some degree (fingers crossed) but if you’re still not sure why you should personally be making changes then watch the videos below. In this five -part series I did on TikTok, I lay out some facts and figures that should convince you once and for all.

Lockdown 1 was just a ‘blip’

We all remember seeing nature start to heal last spring with wild animals exploring urban areas around the world during Lockdown 1. It looked like the world recover from human influence but looking back, it’s just a blip. The drop in CO2 that we thought was so impressive has done nothing to dent our carbon contributions in the grand scheme of things. We still have a long way to go.

Source: The World Meteorological Organisation

Deforestation

Between 2015 and 2020, the deforestation rate per year was equivalent to 10 million hectares which is roughly the size of Iceland. The worst affected areas were Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia.

Source: BBC Future

Wildfires

Following record temperatures and drought, Australia lost 46 million acres last year to the bushfires while California lost double its state record last year with 4 million acres burning by October 2020.

Source: BBC News

Arctic Melting

2020 was the first year since records began that the ice in the Arctic circle had not frozen back over by late October. It was the hottest year recorded within the arctic circle at 38c in Eastern Siberia.

Source: TIME, the Guardian

The Human Cost

According to the WHO, Climate Change is already costing an estimated 150,000 deaths annually. It accounts for 93% of the total environmental costs, according to CDP. In the next five years, climate change, deforestation and water insecurity will cost suppliers $1.26 trillion and corporate buyers will need to absorb £120 billion in environmental costs by 2026.

Source: CDP Global Supply Chain Report

It’s not all doom and gloom…here’s some good green news too!

The World Economic Forum launched a campaign this year to plant one trillion trees to absorb carbon.
Several species believed to be extinct were “rediscovered” this year. Including the new guinea singing dog, a Madagascan Chameleon and a satyr butterfly that hasn’t been seen in almost 100 years.
More governments and companies than ever have committed to reaching net-zero carbon emissions in the coming decades.
One of the world’s worst polluters- China- has announced its plans to become carbon-neutral by 2060 with Japan, Hungary, Canada, South Africa and South Korea following similar plans by 2050. Plus, the US rejoined the Paris Climate agreement just hours following Joe Biden becoming president.