Earth Day celebrated round the globe

New Delhi, April 22: Earth Day is observed for the past over 40 years to generate awareness about need to protect earth's environment.

Various programmes were held all over the world including India to mark the occasion. This year's theme is "the face of climate change".

The name and concept of Earth Day was pioneered by John McConnell in 1969 at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco. He proposed March 21, 1970, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere.

A month later a separate Earth Day was founded by United States Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in first held on 22nd April, 1970.

While this April 22 Earth Day was focused on the United States, an organization launched by Denis Hayes, who was the original national coordinator in 1970, took it international in 1990 and organized events in 141 nations.

Numerous communities celebrate Earth Week, an entire week of activities focused on environmental issues.

Earth Day is the largest secular event in the world -- and more people join in every year.

Earth Day is an extraordinary event. It combines the functions of educator, movement builder and the largest public service project in the world.

More than one billion people from almost every single country on earth will take an action in service to our planet.

Men, women and children haul garbage, clean up coral reefs and mountain trails, show movies, sign petitions, march to solve the climate crises, hold town hall meetings to plan a better future, and rally to save the great apes, dwindling tigers, embattled elephants and other threatened species.

More than 100 million schoolchildren around the world learn about the importance of clean air and water; thousands of federal, state, and local governments will issue reports about their environmental achievements and records and make pledges to improve their environmental performance and invest in green technology; and tens of thousands of clergy members will give sermons about the importance of protecting God's creation.

In short, Earth Day participants not only get a lot done, they also demonstrate that human beings everywhere are driven by their faith, their conscience, their sense of duty, or by a moral imperative to save the planet.

It is staggering to think about one billion people working together in a collective action.