Earth Day, from Space and Earth
April 22
To celebrate Earth Day, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released a 3-minute video (see link below) showing images of Earth from 2014 as seen from satellites in space. The images include erupting volcanoes, a shrinking Aral Sea, hurricanes, dust storms, and the satellites that show us these events. Last year on Earth Day, NASA encouraged people to post “Global Selfies,” photos of some posters’ favorite places on the planet. For 2015, the space agency in asking people to post photos or videos of spots on Earth to social media with the hashtag #NoPlaceLikeHome.
Many events are taking place to celebrate the day, from groups picking up litter to events that help children build bird feeders and the planting of thousands of trees. In New York City, Earth Day was celebrated in Union Square for the entire day last Sunday. Today, a man was planning to swim the length of Brooklyn’s murky and toxic Gowanus Canal to highlight the need for clean water and the slow-moving pace of the federal clean-up of the canal. The city’s mayor, Bill De Blasio, announced a new waste reduction plan for New Yorkers. In London, restaurants created meals from leftover food to highlight the amount of food wasted in restaurants. By some estimates, as much as 10 percent of the food restaurants purchase ends up in landfill.
U.S. President Barack Obama is in Florida’s Everglades today, on a trip that highlights the danger climate change poses to habitats vulnerable to rising seas. The president will also announce new initiatives for national parks in the United States.
Earth Day was first celebrated 45 years ago, beginning on April 22, 1970. In 1969, U.S. Senator Gaylord A. Nelson suggested that a day of environmental education be held on college campuses. The following year, the lawyer and environmentalist Denis Hayes, then a recent graduate of Stanford University, led hundreds of students in planning and organizing the observance of Earth Day on April 22, 1970. About 20 million people participated in this celebration. In 1995, U.S. President Bill Clinton awarded Senator Nelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor given to civilians in the United States, for his role as Earth Day founder.
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