Climate Change and Creation of Earth Day

Table of Contents

Historical Context
Historical Figure or Groups Participation
Historical Figure or Groups Motivation
Influence of Historical Context
Connecting Historical and Current Events
Historical Perspective
Revised Research Question
Perspective and Evidence
References

Historical Context

Climate change enables communities to create environmental initiatives, industries to update their manufacturing, and politicians to influence the problem through their campaigns. Indeed, the Earth Day creation in 1970 was the governments response to societys increasing environmental consciousness, and the idea was to encourage individuals and businesses to decrease human impact on the planet (Earth Day, n. d.). If viewed from a political perspective, the event marked the period when social demand for addressing the problem required a regulative response from American Administration. Disasters, such as the massive oil spill in California in 1969, led to protests and made the congress members understand that they have to react to be efficient politicians (Lewis, 2020). As more senators offered environmental initiatives for their states, by April 22, 1970, the need for legislative regulations occurred. As a result, the United States Environmental Protection Agency was established and passed crucial environmental laws, such as the National Environmental Education Act and the Clean Air Act (Hale, 2020). The political perspective displays how the governments reaction to social requests led to the Earth Day creation and further important ecological initiatives development.

Historical Figure or Groups Participation

Senator Gaylord Nelson, who established Earth Day on April 22, 1970, is the historical figure whose impact on addressing climate change is worth exploring. The politician used his authority to enable the government to manage the increasing social awareness of the environmental consequences of rapid economic and production development nationwide. As Wisconsins governor, Nelson set several successful ecological regulations in his state, showing the Congress that the United States has resources and opportunities to address the environmental problems (Mason, 2021). Furthermore, the politicians role was to advise the presidents Kennedy and Johnson regarding considering societys demand for decreasing the ecological damage. Consequently, Congress was aware of significant issues such as water and air pollution, gas emissions, and oil spill and approved the Earth Day creation.

Historical Figure or Groups Motivation

Senator Nelsons attention to how species should respect their planet and save it for future generations helped him convince the government to establish Earth Day and pass environment-based legislation. According to Mason (2021), Nelson claimed that it concerned me that political establishment was not paying serious attention to human most important responsibility on the planet to protect the integrity of the life-sustaining ecosystem (p. 46). The governor also valued the social initiatives and peoples interest in making an impact on decreasing the environmental damage. Nelson encouraged the administration to avoid establishing a top-down regulation and let the communities celebrate Earth Day the way they find appropriate.

Influence of Historical Context

Historical context displayed that economic growth led to the increasing number of productions, urbanization, industrial and military manufacturing, and the consequent ecological challenges. Indeed, in the 1960s-1970s, the United States society got through massive Civil Rights movement development, and, although the country was involved in the Vietnam and Cold Wars, citizens were becoming more prosperous (Dietz, 2020). Furthermore, the information about ecological disasters, such as increasing emissions, oil spills, and the use of pesticides, spread through the media, increasing national awareness of human harm to the environment (Ruben, 1995). As diverse communities actively shared their positions and mostly received positive responses from the government, the historical context was suitable for addressing environmental issues.

Connecting Historical and Current Events

Since Earth Days establishment in 1970, American national and worldwide awareness of environmental problems significantly increased along with the growing population, manufacturing, and the degree of human damage to the ecology. Among various recent conventions, initiatives, and nature-protection campaigns, Gretta Thunbergs a young Swedish activists speech at the United Nations stood out. The teenager accused world leaders of ignoring the climate change and other environmental issues in their race toward wealth and authority (NBC News, 2019). Thunbergs speech was massively shared on social media to remind people of the actions necessary for preventing the planet from catastrophes. The growing need for public awareness about the environmental damage is connected to Earth Days creation because it was the foundation for activists initiatives that can now help avoid forgetting about humanitys ecological footprint.

Historical Perspective

The selected event was the Earth Day creation on April 22, 1970, and reviewing it from a historical perspective reveals the reasons and the outcomes that occurred as the environmental consciousness increased. This social tendency coincided with the Civil Rights movements and politicians attention to the citizens opinions (Galvin, 2020). Furthermore, the news about ecological issues spread nationwide, making communities protect their lands nature from severe production and economic outcomes. For instance, the massive oil spill in California in 1969 resulted in developing environment-protection movements in many other states as the media shared the disasters reasons and consequences (Spezio, 2018). Governmental and public attention was necessary to prevent such events from repeating, and this historical setting caused Earth Day to be established.

Revised Research Question

The initial research question was, to what extent does the creation of Earth Day contribute to public awareness about the climate change initiatives? The evidence from primary and secondary recourses proved that the event was beneficial for providing communities with the opportunity to address the environmental issue as the government developed regulations for supporting the related programs (Dietz et al., 2020). The initial research question can be revised by narrowing its focus: what outcomes of the creation of Earth Day contributed to public awareness about the climate change initiatives?

Perspective and Evidence

The finalized research question reflects how viewing the creation of Earth Day from different perspectives submitted the events significant contribution to public awareness about the climate change initiatives. Although recent evidence, such as Gretta Thunbergs speech, might seem that even more attention to the environmental issues should be paid, its crucial to consider that todays population and ecological challenges are a lot wider than in the 1970s (Lewis, 2020). The research strengthens the question because exploring Earth Days outcomes can help identify the social, political, and legislative practices to address climate change in current conditions.