UCCS Earth Day 2020

Denver Botanic Garden Tour:

https://www.botanicgardens.org/virtual-tours-gardens

Easy plant-based meal recipes:

https://www.forksoverknives.com/recipes/vegan-menus-collections/30-minute-meals/#gs.2z3va4

UCCS Rec Center Virtual Workout:

https://www.uccs.edu/recwellness/recreation-movement

*make an account with your UCCS email to access the virtual workouts

Self Care:

https://www.goingzerowaste.com/blog/sustainable-ethical-and-cheap-15-self-care-ideas

https://www.uccs.edu/recwellness/wellness/happiness/resources

https://tobemagnetic.com/free-native-1/2018/2/10/sustainable-self-care--j65x2

"Earth Day 1970 gave a voice to an emerging public consciousness about the state of our planet — 

In the decades leading up to the first Earth Day, Americans were consuming vast amounts of leaded gas through massive and inefficient automobiles. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of the consequences from either the law or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. Until this point, mainstream America remained largely oblivious to environmental concerns and how a polluted environment threatens human health.

However, the stage was set for change with the publication of Rachel Carson’s New York Times bestseller Silent Spring in 1962. The book represented a watershed moment, selling more than 500,000 copies in 24 countries as it raised public awareness and concern for living organisms, the environment and the inextricable links between pollution and public health.

Earth Day 1970 would come to provide a voice to this emerging environmental consciousness, channeling the energy of the anti-war protest movement to put environmental concerns on the front page.

Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson came up with the idea for a national day to focus on the environment after Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, witnessed the ravages of a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California, in 1969. Inspired by the student anti-war movement, Senator Nelson realized that if he could infuse the energy of anti-war protests 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. He then persuaded Pete McCloskey, a conservation-minded Republican Congressman, to serve as his co-chair and recruited a 25-year-old named Denis Hayes from Harvard as national coordinator. Hayes built a national staff of 85 to promote events across the land.

April 22, falling between Spring Break and Final Exams, was selected as the date.

On April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans — at the time, 10% of the total population of the United States — 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 individually against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness and the extinction of wildlife united on Earth Day around these shared common values. Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, urban dwellers and farmers, business and labor leaders. By the end of 1970, 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."

Historical content provided by earthday.org