Help protect the planet by using clean solar energy, driving an EV and using battery-electric off-highway vehicles at work.
The 55th anniversary of Earth Day is being celebrated around the globe today, April 22, with the theme “Our Planet, Our Power.”
Earthday.org, which came into being following the first Earth Day in 1970, said that this year’s theme is a call to action “for everyone to unite around renewable energy so we can triple clean electricity by 2030,” whether by driving an electric vehicle, using clean solar energy or operating battery-electric off-highway vehicles at work.
Thousands of Earth Day events are slated to take place on Tuesday, ranging from “24 Hours of Sun” in Munich, which looks at the effects of solar energy on our carbon footprints, to an online event with Michael Ben-Eli, founder of the Sustainability Laboratory. Mindahi Bastida, a caretaker of the philosophy and tradition of the Otomi-Toltec peoples of Central Mexico, will discuss ancestors, sacred sites and ceremonies, and how ancestral wisdom and teachings can contribute to advancing the sustainability agenda.
The environmental activism that began in the 1960s inspired Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson to create a national celebration uniting the environmental movement.
In 1970, then-President Richard Nixon celebrated the first Earth Day by planting a tree on the White House South Lawn. Across the country, millions of people attended Earth Day events, a moment that put the battle against pollution on political and social agendas. Indeed, Nixon went on to create the Environmental Protection Agency and sign the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts, which passed in Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support.
The term “climate change” wasn’t in people’s vocabularies yet, but the underlying issues were there. Despite having a president in the White House who at one point said that “global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive,” there has been a dramatic change in human behavior due to the unintended consequences of the isolation of millions of people across the world who recognized how magnificent the earth could become on Earth Day 2020, one that took place in a world with far less smog and pollution as millions across the globe that year realized that their blood pressure was lower, their allergies less bothersome and the stars in the night sky were more visible.
On Saturday, October 26, New York City will celebrate Car-Free Earth Day. Car-Free Earth Day dramatically changes the Big Apple’s streetscape by creating 54 car-free streets and plazas around the five boroughs, all of which can be accessed using public transit. Some locations will include public art or community programming as well.
April is also Drive Electric Earth Month, a compilation of hundreds of EV-related events that take place between April 1 and April 30. Events range from the Electric Vehicle Symposium and Ride and Drive at Farmingdale State College, an all-day event on April 25 that includes breakfast, and the Town of Penfield, New York’s EV Car Show and Arbor Day Celebration on April 26, to the EV Ride & Drive at the San Carlos Apache Tribe Earth Day Expo on April 24 in Bylas, Arizona, and the Earth Day EV Show at the amazing Kalamazoo Nature Center in Kalamazoo, Michigan on April 26, in the city that was once home to the Checker Motor Company, manufacturer of the storied Checker cab.
Finally, in celebration of Earth Day 2025, radio stations KPTE 107.9 and 92.9 The Point will broadcast live from the Durango Motor Company in Durango, Colorado, where “visitors can learn how EVs help reduce carbon emissions, cut fuel costs and support a cleaner future for transportation.”
Source: Earthday.org