WORLD EARTH DAY

Earth Day is an annual event on 22nd April to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on 22nd April 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.

PARADISICAL DESTINATIONS IMPACTED BY CLIMATE CHANGE For Small Island Developing States (SIDS) like Chuuk State within the Federated States of Micronesia (this page) or Vanuatu (overleaf), climate change remains the most significant single threat to sustainable development. The Vanuatu Mission to the United Nations is a strong advocate for a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions that limits the rise in global temperatures to well below 1.5° Celsius. Although already a carbonnegative country, absorbing more emissions than it produces, it further engages in ensuring the effective implementation of the Paris Agreement and is committed to 100% renewable energy in electricity generation by 2030.

According to Earthday.org, "in the decades leading up to the first Earth Day, Americans were consuming vast amounts of leaded gas through massive and inefficient automobiles. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of the consequences from either the law or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. Until this point, mainstream America remained largely oblivious to environmental concerns and how a polluted environment threatens human health. However, the stage was set for change with the publication of Rachel Carson’s New York Times bestseller Silent Spring in 1962. The book represented a watershed moment, selling more than 500,000 copies in 24 countries as it raised public awareness and concern for living organisms, the environment and the inextricable links between pollution and public health."

In 1969 at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco, peace activist John McConnell proposed a day to honour the Earth - 21st March, 1970, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. A month later, US Senator Gaylord Nelson proposed the idea of holding an environmental teach-in on April 22, 1970 across the US. He hired a young activist, Denis Hayes, to be the National Coordinator. Nelson and Hayes renamed the event "Earth Day". Denis and his staff grew the event beyond the original idea for a teachin to include the entire United States. More than 20 million people poured out on the streets, and the first Earth Day remains the largest single-day protest in human history.