April 22 every year is Earth Day. This year, the international day of action with the motto: “Think globally, act locally” is already 50 years old. The aim is to raise awareness of environmental problems and to show concrete solutions and individual options for action. The focus this year is on the topic of climate change – a problem that remains pressing even during the Corona pandemic.
Fifty years ago, on April 22, 1970, 20 million people took to the streets in the United States to demonstrate for greater environmental protection. This first Earth Day was initiated by the then US Senator Gaylord Nelson, who also wanted to use this environmental action day to make people rethink their own consumer behavior. This first Earth Day is the starting signal for the global environmental movement. Since 1990, “Earth Day” has been an international day of action in which people in more than 150 countries take part.
“A big tent”
“This first Earth Day was so important because it provided a platform for a whole range of different problems – from air pollution to roads that cut through nature, leaded paints, DDT, oil spills or burning rivers,” said Denis Hayes, former board member of Earth Day networks. “The first Earth Day was like a big tent that spanned many values and concerns.” According to the Earth Day veteran, precisely this diversity was one of the secrets to the success of this movement. “Because people are most committed when something is directly relevant to them,” says Hayes.
To this day, the annual Earth Day therefore has the motto: “Think globally, act locally”. All over the world, locally organized actions, events or protests take place on April 22, which point to environmental problems and possible solutions – and which show concrete ways in which everyone can contribute to environmental and climate protection. This year, climate change and climate protection are at the center of international Earth Day campaigns. “The enormous challenges, but also the great opportunities to act against climate change have made this topic the most urgent concern of the 50th Earth Day anniversary,” says the official website of the campaign.
However, in times of the corona pandemic, the motto this year is #EarthDayAtHome – a large number of actions take place digitally. Under the hashtag, interested parties can find information on campaign ideas, virtual discussion groups and other topics related to this year’s Earth Day.
Earth observation as an important basis
“The goals of the Earth Day movement are more relevant today than ever – from the scarcely slowed down consumption of natural resources to the often dramatic pollution of land, water and air,” says Jörn Hoffmann from the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Over the past decades, satellites have played an important role in the environmental movement and also in scientifically substantiating its goal. Because earth observation from space has not only radically changed our view of the earth, but also our knowledge of it: “The gradual change in our environment is hardly comprehensible without satellite data,” explains Hans-Peter Lüttenberg from DLR.
The images show the sealing of entire areas, the spread of deserts, the deforestation of the rainforest or the extent of burning coal seams worldwide. The satellite data also show how the ice cover on the poles and mountains is shrinking or how air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, greenhouse gases or fine dust particles are distributed in the atmosphere. “Without this data, we would not understand climate change and other environmental changes nearly as well as we do today,” says Hoffmann.
Source: earthday.org, German Aerospace Center (DLR)