EARTHRISE: Earth Day in times of Lockdown
In 2020 Earth Day is going digital to celebrate its 50th Anniversary, reminding the world that a pandemic is our planet’s cry for help and urging individuals to take action.
The Beginning
“…Earth Day failed,” reported Walter Cronkite on CBS News Special for Earth Day on the 22nd of April 1970.
Despite Rachel Carson’s exposé of environmental issues and their direct link to human health in her 1962 bestseller, Silent Spring, in 1970 the world remained focused on the Space Race and the Vietnam War.
In this context, senator Gaylord Nelson decided it was enough; it was time to take action and speak up for our planet. With the help of Denis Hayes, Nelson’s idea for a “national teach-in on the environment” was promoted throughout the United States and came to life on April 22nd, 1970.
On the first Earth Day, one-tenth of the population took to the streets to demonstrate for a sustainable and healthy environment in the United States. This action achieved a rare political alignment between Republicans and Democrats, poor and rich, farmers and urban residents, and by the end of that year, the United States saw the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air Act. These achievements were closely followed by the passage of the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act.
After continued success in the United States, in 1990 the Earth Day went global, mobilizing 200 million people across 141 countries, thus raising environmental issues onto the global stage.
“The most trusted man in America” might have been slightly mistaken.
Earth Day Today
As Earth Day celebrates half a century of existence, it is recognized as the most important secular observance in the world. Today, it is calculated that approximately one billion people in more than 190 countries are mobilized yearly on this day.
Earth Day is widely recognized for having paved the way for the 1992 United Nations Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit. Later, in 2016 the UN chose this day to sign the Paris Agreement, which in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is an agreement dealing with mitigation, adaptation, and finance of greenhouse-gas emissions.
As part of its efforts, over the years the Earth Day Network has established several initiatives to combat climate change. A clear example is A Billion Acts of Green, an initiative that has now surpassed its goal, having reached more than 2.6 billion acts oriented towards the reduction of carbon emissions and support of sustainability. The Canopy Project is another great example, a reforestation project that has planted millions of trees since 2010, and which aims to plant one tree per each person on Earth this year, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.
Earth Day Daily Challenge
As if accentuating this year’s election of climate action as the topic for Earth Day, society was suddenly forced to take action in the face of a global pandemic by going into social isolation.
Under these circumstances, the global community has found in the digital world a way to unite, particularly through social media. On these platforms, the so-called challenges have become one of the main tendencies, and Earth Day was not about to be left out.
As a build-up to Earth Day 2020, the Earth Day Daily Challenge was launched, a 22-day series establishing a daily action that individuals can take from home, culminating with a call to the global community to join in as Earth Day goes digital on April 22nd. Anyone interested in participating can easily view the actions on the Earth Day social media each day.
In the face of a challenge that forces us to stay apart, we’re bringing challenges to bring the world together.
EARTHRISE
Taking its name from the picture of the Earth that inspired the world in 1968, EARTHRISE is the Earth Day’s response to the global pandemic. This crisis is a reminder of the interdependency existing between the health of the Earth and the health of humans. This was the core idea behind the first Earth Day in 1970, and it is the same idea that EARTHRISE reminds us of today.
Social isolation has physically divided people today, however society has come ever closer through the technological world, and it is through this medium that EARTHRISE calls on society to:
1. Speak: An invitation to the global community to share on digital platforms their motivations, actions and ideas to tackle the issue of climate change, coming together under #EarthDay2020 and #EARTHRISE.
2. Act: On April 22nd everyone is invited to partake in the 24 actions that will be shared by the Earth Day Network, as a reminder that the actions of each and every person matter. Every hour, on the hour, one action will be shared to empower individuals to take action and drive change.
3. Vote: A reminder that every vote matters, and must therefore be carefully placed through prior research and careful consideration.
4. Educate: Earth Day was born through teach-in’s in recognition of the key role education has in driving change. As Earth Day goes global, so do the teach-in’s; on April 22nd the global community is invited to tune into EARTHRISE and soak in the expertise of some of the worlds most influential drivers for change.
“Thanks to heroic actions around the world, we will overcome and recover from the coronavirus. Life will return to normal, but we must not allow the return to business as usual. Our planet — our future — depends on it.”
References
- Earth Day. 2020. Earth Day 50th Anniversary. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.earthday.org/earth-day-50th-anniversary/. [Accessed 17 April 2020].
