Earth Day eve 2009: An environmental writer, an interpretive ranger, and a sustainability planner sat around the kitchen table and realized none of us knew how, where, and how Earth Day got started. Found the following from The Wilderness Society - let me know if you find other information.
The seeds of Earth Day were planted in 1962 when Sen. Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin had this idea for Pres. JFK to go on a national wilderness tour. So JFK did in 1963 but it didn't get as much limelight as he'd hoped (anyone knows why?).
Summer of 1969, Nelson was on a conservation speaking tour and had an idea to tap into the energies of student-led protests, rallies and teach-ins around the Vietnam War and channel them into the environmental cause. He announced that in the Spring of 1970 there would be a nationwide environmental teach-in about the problems the world faced with its water, land, air, forests, oceans, etc. With the rising awareness over environmental concerns, this idea caught on like wildfire. Supposedly 20 million people participated in that first Earth Day in 1970.
I can only imagine the energy at that time. I imagine it was something like what happened the night Obama got elected. Grassroots. Walking around Berkeley and the Bay Area, I look around and see the ghosts of the 1970 nationwide grassroots efforts. If anyone have stories at that time, I'd love to hear them.
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