On April 22 at the Blake School (when the date doesn’t fall on a weekend), all the lights are half lit and the shuffling of footsteps lingers throughout the hallway. To some it may seem like an eerie scene from a horror movie, but it is quite the opposite. The school does not turn off the lights for the entertainment of the students, but for the celebration of Earth Day, the largest civic observance in world. One billion humans recognize the day in 175 countries.
The first Earth day was inspired by the end of Senator Gaylord Nelon’s nine-year journey, on April 22, 1870. Each year, we are asked to reflect on how our actions impact our natural environment. We are reminded of the reasons we have for taking action to save the planet. Since, at the time,  the government was not taking any interest in environmental issues, Nelson thought, “if we could tap into the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse the student anti-war into the environmental cause, we could generate a demonstration that would force this issue onto the political agenda.”
We, the people, are forcing the issue to be heard by the government, because it affects the safety of everything on the planet. If all of Earth’s inhabitants participate, things can be accomplished. The first “Earth day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level.” Let us continue this legacy.
Don’t let April 22 be the only day you conserve energy or donate to Earth Day Network. Let it be the day you start your own plan of action.