The first Earth Day

  Ageing protesters still speak of the first Earth Day with reverence. On 22 April 1970, 20 million people took to the streets across the United States to protest environmental destruction. The nation had recently witnessed the devastating impacts of the Santa Barbara oil spill and seen the first photographs of the Earth taken by astronauts. The beauty of that blue marble pictured from space contrasted bleakly with the lamentable state of the Earth that they knew from the ground. […]
  The event was larger many times over than its organisers had anticipated. “Our aspirations were to have an event that resembled some of the anti-war rallies and civil rights rallies. But instead of having them in one or five communities, we looked at it in many cities across the country,” says Denis Hayes, who organised the original Earth Day. “By the time it finally came around, it was in virtually every town, every village, in the United States. It took this basket of issues that we now call ‘the environmentʼ and elevated them spectacularly in the public consciousness.”
  When Earth Day began in 1970, there was no other protest like it. Today, it is just one branch in an enormous ecosystem of environmental movements, many of which are louder, more political and youth-driven. Jamie Margolin, who founded the youth movement Zero Hour from her home in Seattle, says that she started to appreciate Earth Day when she learned about its revolutionary roots, and now believes that it is a useful tool in bringing people together to tackle environmental problems, whatever their backgrounds.