One of the fascinating aspects of viewing Earth at night is how well the lights show the distribution of people. In this view of Egypt, the population is shown to be almost completely concentrated along the Nile Valley, just a small percentage of the country’s land area. This huge concentrations are affecting the rivers ecosystems of many major rivers - Image : NASA

Mexico City, Mexico Some 20 million people live in Mexico City, the world's fifth largest metropolitan area. In 1800 the urban fraction of the global population was 3 percent. Today it is 50 percent and rising. In crowded shantytowns, the need for clean water and sanitation is urgent.

Oil transformed Dubai in the 1970s. The city now boasts the world's tallest building, giant malls, and some two million residents, who depend on desalinated seawater and air-conditioning—and thus on cheap energy—to live in the Arabian desert

Ira Einhorn—a leader of nonviolence, drug, and free-love movements in the 1960s—speaks at Philadelphia's first Earth Day celebration on April 22, 1970, Across the U.S. the first Earth Day drew an estimated 20 million participants.

Mother Earth is a common expression for the planet earth in a number of countries and regions, which reflects the interdependence that exists among human beings, other living species and the planet. For instance, Bolivians call Mother Earth Pachamama and Nicaraguans refer to her as Tonantzin. In 2009, the United Nations designated April 22 International Mother Earth Day.

Age of Man is a new name for a new geologic epoch—one defined by our own massive impact on the planet. That mark will endure in the geologic record long after our cities have crumbled. We made big cities , dammed big rivers , dried up many rivers, melted the glaciers which took millions of years to form, emptying the fossil fuels that were buried in earth some 200 millions of years ago...

Some people still argue that all the environmental fears are just fight against capitalism and with more and more scietific development we will be able to cope all the environmental problems and can build sustainable world. They are so much confident on the Human Mind - but see we are just 5 million years(at max..) old on this planet and are amongst the youngest of it's species and we are able to vanquish many old species in the memorials of time. If we continue doing it and doing whatever we like on this planet without retrospective of what we are doing now- we will be soon earased just like the dinosaurs (they lived for some 100 million years i guess) ....

Earth Day is one attempt that is intended to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's natural environment. Earth Day was founded by United States Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in first held on April 22, 1970.

From then the not-so-humble beginnings in 1970, when 20 million participated across the U.S., Earth Day has grown into a global tradition, which is now celebrated every year by more than a billion people in 180 nations around the world but many will do so with Facebook rather than megaphones. 

The fight for a clean environment continues in a climate of increasing urgency, as the ravages of climate change become more manifest every day. 

History Of Earth Day

Its 1970 and the world (Particularly developed economies like US) was slurping leaded gas through massive V8 sedans. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. “Environment” was a word that appeared more often in spelling bees than on the evening news.  

The world has been slow to respond to the emergencies posed by global warming and the damage human activities are causing the planet. Then the idea of Earth Day came to its founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, after witnessing the ravages of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California.

Inspired by the student anti-war movement, he realized that if he could infuse that energy with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution, it would force environmental protection onto the national political agenda. Senator Nelson announced the idea for a “national teach-in on the environment” to the national media; persuaded Pete McCloskey, a conservation-minded Republican Congressman, to serve as his co-chair; and recruited Denis Hayes as national coordinator. Hayes built a national staff of 85 to promote events across the land.

As a result, on the 22nd of April, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values.

Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, city slickers and farmers, tycoons and labor leaders. The first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts.
 

Earth Day 2011

To catalyze global environmental activism, Earth Day Network has chosen A Billion Acts of Green® as the theme for Earth Day 2011. At over 102 million actions to date, A Billion Acts of Green®–the largest environmental service campaign in the world–inspires and rewards simple individual acts and larger organizational initiatives that further the goal of measurably reducing carbon emissions and supporting sustainability. The goal is to register one billion actions in advance of the global Earth Summit in Rio in 2012.

Opposition

The Earth Day inspite of wide patronage is not completely unopposed. There are sizeable population saying "we should have a Be Proud of Being Human Day … not a Feel Guilty for Trampling on Mother Earth Day."