Monday is Earth Day, so what does that mean?

Today, April 22nd is Earth Day. An annual event that takes place every April 22nd to demonstrate support for environmental protection.

First held in 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally by the group Earthday.org, and includes participation from 1 billion people in more than 193 countries.

Earth Day was born as a reaction to a major oil spill that had occurred in 1969. On January 28th, an oil well just offshore from Santa Barbara, California blew out and an estimated three million gallons of oil spilled, killing about 10,000 sea birds, dolphins, seals, and sea lions.

Activists gathered near the shore and demanded environmental regulation, environmental education, and ultimately, Earth Day was introduced as an idea.

Wisconsin plays a major role in the spread of Earth Day as then Wisconsin Senator and former Governor Gaylord Nelson thought that teaching environmental education on college campuses across the country could happen like the then current movement of teach-ins students held protesting out against the Vietnam war.

On September 20 of 1969, Senator Nelson first announced his plans for an “environmental teach-In” in a talk at the University of Washington. A subsequent talk in November was attended by a New York Times reporter that wrote about the movement and it took off from there.

Today the event mostly consists of overall environmental education, groups gathering to pick up trash in parks and along roadways and a heavy trend of fighting the use of plastics. The group earthday.org is hoping to eliminate the use of plastics on earth by 2040.