Responding to a huge oil spill off the Californian coast in 1969, Gaylord Nelson, a United States Senator from Wisconsin, called for an environmental teach-in, or Earth Day, to be held on April 22, 1970.
Over 20 million people participated that year. Earth Day is now observed each year by more than 500 million people and national governments in 175 countries.
oh the irony given that, in September 1969 at a conference in Seattle, Washington, U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson spoke of the great concern about overpopulation and about a movement towards "Zero Population Growth."
Nelson viewed the stabilization of the nation's population as an important aspect of environmentalism and later said: "The bigger the population gets, the more serious the problems become...We have to address the population issue".
Earth Day 2007 was one of the largest Earth Days to date, with an estimated billion people participating in the activities in thousands of places like Kiev, Ukraine; Caracas, Venezuela; Tuvalu; Manila, Philippines; Togo; Madrid, Spain; London; and New York.
More than a half billion people participate in Earth Day Network campaigns every year.
Senator Nelson chose the date as the one that could maximize participation on college campuses for what he conceived as an environmental teach-in. He determined that the week of April 19-25 was the best bet. It did not fall during exams or spring breaks, did not conflict with religious holidays such as Easter or Passover, and was late enough in spring to have decent weather. More students were likely to be in class, and there would be less competition with other events mid-week, so he chose Wednesday, April 22.
Asked whether he had purposely chosen Lenin's 100th birthday, Nelson explained that with only 365 days a year and 3.7 billion people in the world, every day was the birthday of ten million living people.
“On any given day, a lot of both good and bad people were born,” he said. “A person many consider the world’s first environmentalist, Saint Francis of Assisi, was born on April 22.“
April 22 is also the birthday of Julius Sterling Morton, the founder of Arbor Day, a national tree-planting holiday started in 1872. Arbor Day became a legal holiday in Nebraska in 1885, to be permanently observed on April 22, to coincide with the best tree planting weather."
Butterflies are notable for their unusual life cycle with a larval caterpillar stage, an inactive pupal stage, and a spectacular metamorphosis into a familiar and colourful winged adult form.
Butterflies migrate over long distances. Particularly famous are the migration of the Monarch butterfly from Mexico to North America, a distance of about 4,000 to 4,800 kilometres (2500-3000 miles).
Other well known migratory species include the Painted Lady and several of the Danaine butterflies. Spectacular and large scale migrations associated with the Monsoons are seen in peninsular India.
Butterflies are seen as the personification of a person's soul. And symbolize immortality.
One Japanese superstition says that if a butterfly enters your guest room and perches behind the bamboo screen, the person whom you most love is coming to see you.
The Russian word for "butterfly", бабочка (bábochka), also means "bow tie".
In some old cultures, butterflies also symbolize rebirth into a new life after being inside a cocoon for a period of time.
The Earth, and every living thing upon it, would benefit if we all morphed meta-lly, like the butterfly, and lived with a light footprint, so as to strengthen the fragile and retain that which has taken literally eons to evolve and be, and marvel at how everything has come to be.
So get out there and hug the earth with your eyes and heart.
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