Tag: Earth day
Earth Day 1970 Changed American History
April 21, 2020[caption id="attachment_271372" align="alignnone" width="819"] At 1983's Earthfest, the center's celebration of Earth Day, participants played with a 6-foot Earthball, one of the many activities at the event. Mike Weilbacher, then a member of the education staff, organized the festival for the center.[/caption]
By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director
Wednesday, April 22 marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, a watershed moment in American history, and a day that continues to change with the times. While this is not the Earth Day anyone expected, as one billion people from almost 200 countries are NOT, as originally expected, gathering in large protests and…
Earth Day: Become 1 of the 1 Billion Participants
April 21, 2016By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director
This Friday, April 22, marks the return of Earth Day—and check this out—on that day, estimates are that one billion people from 200 nations will mark the day. Earth Day has quietly emerged as the largest secular holiday worldwide with the exception of New Year’s Day.
And this year’s edition will be even more newsworthy, as many countries will begin signing the groundbreaking Paris climate change treaty that day at the UN in New York.
As big as it is, Philadelphia played a key role in Earth Day’s birth. (more…)
Earth Day and the Green Tsunami
April 22, 2015By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director
On Wednesday, April 22, 1970, 45 years ago today, more than 20 million Americans participated in the largest mass demonstration in American history, some 1 million in New York City alone. They marched wearing gas masks and buried cars in mock graves protesting polluted air, threw buckets of dead fish into the lobbies of corporate offices to protest polluted water, and carried signs with grim messages like “RIP: Earth.”
It was the first Earth Day. Reflecting back, it’s too easy to forget how angry people were about a polluted planet back in 1970.
In Philadelphia,…
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