Medium
April 22, 2020
Across the United States, 20 million people of all ages and backgrounds united on April 22, 1970 to protect our planet and build an environmental movement from the ground up to chart a cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable future. The people who lent their voices to the first Earth Day created a groundswell of political change that helped establish the Environmental Protection Agency and enact bedrock conservation laws like the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. Parents demanded change for their children, children demanded change for their future — and progress was won.
It was during this time that my father, former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, sounded the alarm about the creeping destruction of nature — what he termed ‘The Quiet Crisis.’