Q&A: Denis Hayes, Planner of the First Earth Day, Discusses the ‘Virtual’ 50th

Denis Hayes was a 25-year-old graduate student at Harvard University when he read about a Wisconsin Senator, Gaylord Nelson, who was planning to organize an environmental teach-in on college campuses.

Co-founder of Earth Day Denis Hayes speaks at the
lighting of the Earth Ball press conference in Times
Square on April 22, 2009 in New York City. 

Hayes hightailed it to Washington, D.C., hoping to convince Nelson to let him organize a teach-in at Harvard, and maybe other colleges in and around Boston. Two days later, Hayes dropped out of the John F. Kennedy School of Government to coordinate a national event, "Earth Day."  

The day made history. The rest is environmental history, one that neither Hayes nor Nelson even expected.

On the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, climate change, deforestation and chemical-intensive agriculture had yet to become existential crises. The issue was pollution, the day a call to action to protect precious resources—-air, water, land and all living things—-from the encroaching toxins of industrial society. That proved enough to draw a crowd.

Read the story from Inside Climate News by Evelyn Nieves - “Q&A: Denis Hayes, Planner of the First Earth Day, Discusses the ‘Virtual’ 50th.”