Earth Day 2027

An observance, not a day off

Earth Day falls on April 22 every year and is marked in the United States and in nearly every other country as a day for environmental action and education. It has no legal standing as a holiday anywhere in the country: it is not on the federal holiday list, no state closes its offices, and the U.S. Postal Service, banks, courts and schools operate on their normal schedules. Employers are not required to give time off. Its influence comes from participation instead.

Why April 22

The date was picked for practical reasons. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, who concieved the event, wanted maxmium studant turnout on college campuses, so organizers chose a weekday that fell between spring break and final exams. April 22, 1970 was a Wednesday - the date has never moved, so Earth Day lands on a different weekday each year and sometimes on a weekend. Many schools and cities hold events on the nearest school day or Saturday, and the surrounding week is often promoted as Earth Week.

From a Senate idea to twenty million people

Nelson had spent years trynig to push environmental issues onto the national agenda. After seeing the damage from the January 1969 oil spill off Santa Barbara, California, and watching the energy of the anti-war teach-ins on campuses, he proposed a national environmental teach-in. He recruited Republican Congressman Pete McCloskey of California as co-chair and hired Denis Hayes, a young Harvard graduate student, as national coordinator. On April 22, 1970, an estimated 20 million Americans, about a tenth of the population at the time, took part in rallies, marches and cleanups. Fifth Avenue in New York City was closed to traffic, and thousands gathered at the Washington Monument. The turnout crossed party lines and gave Congress political room to act, the Environmental Protection Agency opened in December 1970, and the Clean Air Act was rewritten the same year, followed by the Clean Water Act in 1972 and the Endangered Species Act in 1973. Nelson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995 for founding the event.

Going global

Earth Day stayed mostly an American event for twenty years. In 1990 Hayes led a global campaign that drew roughly 200 million people in 141 countries and pushed recycling into the mainstream. The 2000 campaign used the internet to link thousands of groups in a record 184 countries around clean energy. In 2009 the United Nations General Assembly designated April 22 as International Mother Earth Day, and on Earth Day 2016 representatives of more than 170 nations gathered at UN headquarters in New York to sign the Paris climate agreement. The organization that grew out of Nelson's office, now called EARTHDAY.ORG, sets an annual theme and coordinates events worldwide.

How Americans mark the day

Typical activities are local and hands-on: park and beach cleanups, tree plantings, recycling and electronics drop-off drives, native plant sales and citizen science projects. Public schools build lessons around the day, and many science museums, zoos and national parks host free programs during the week. Cities use the occasion to announce climate or transit plans, and retailers run promotions on reusable and energy-efficient products.