EOT 432 The History and Significance of Earth Day

Breyton Hill discusses the history of Earth Day on April 22 and how it came to be one of the largest secular holidays in the world. The theme of Earth Day 2026 is Our Power, Our Planet, which according to EarthDay.org, reflects a fundamental truth: environmental progress doesn’t depend on any single administration or election. It’s sustained by daily actions of communities, educators, workers, and families protecting where they live and work. Breyton invites all of the listeners to get involved in their community for Earth Day and celebrate the beauty that is living on this planet.

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Creators and Guests

Host

Shradha Bhatia

Public Affairs Director (2025-2026)

Producer

Breyton Hill

Content Creator

What is Eye on the Triangle?

Eye on the Triangle is WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2’s weekly public affairs programming with news, interviews, opinion, weather, sports, arts, music, events and issues that matter to NC State, Raleigh and the Triangle.

00:02
Shradha Bhatia
You are listening to Eye of the Triangle, WKNC's weekly public affairs program from the campus of North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Any views and opinions expressed during Eye on the Triangle do not represent NC State or Student Media.

00:33
Breyton Hill
Hello everyone. Thank you for listening to WKNC 88.1. My name is Breyton Hill. Happy Earth Month. In honor of Earth Day this upcoming Wednesday, April 22, I thought that we could look back of some of the history and significance of Earth day. Every year, April 22 serves a celebration of the birth of the modern environmental movement. Americans at the time were consuming vast amounts of leaded gas through older, less efficient cars and there is tons of air pollution. This was before laws or bad press, so the industry had no fears of consequences regarding this pollution. Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring, published in 1962, raised significant awareness and public concern for living animals, the environment and how pollution and public health are deeply intertwined.

01:16
Breyton Hill
Senator Gaylord Nelson witnessed a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California and felt that he had to do something about it. Partnering with Congressman Pete McCloskey, the pair announced an idea for a teach in simulating the energy of student anti war protests, but instead for public awareness around air and water pollution. Dennis Hayes, a young activist at the time, was recruited and the team decided that April 22 would work best for the greatest student engagement, as it was between spring break and final exams. Earth Day was officially born in 1970 and at the time 10% of the total population of the United States was inspired to take to the streets, parks and auditoriums. They raised awareness around the human health impacts of industrial development and pollution.

02:00
Breyton Hill
Earth Day was a rare political alignment with support from Republicans, Democrats, rich and poor, urban dwellers and farmers. Between 1970 and 1980, substantial US environmental legislation was passed. Some of this included the Endangered Species Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, Superfund, Toxic Substance Control act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery act, and of course the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts. The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA was also created. The 1990 Earth Day brought about recycling efforts worldwide with 200 million people in 141 different countries coming together. Earth Day 2000 focused of global warming and pushed for clean energy of an international scale that year, reaching 184 different countries. On the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, nearly 1 billion people took action all around the world with a hope to create sustainable green economies and reduce carbon footprints.

02:55
Breyton Hill
In 2016, the United nations signed the most significant climate accord in history, the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement is an international treaty signed by almost 200 nations to Combat Climate Change the long term goals are to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, to hold global temperature increases to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit it more, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change. Another goal is to periodically assess the collective progress towards achieving the purpose of this agreement and its long term goals, and lastly to provide financial aid in developing countries to mitigate climate change, strengthen resilience and enhance abilities to adapt to climate impacts. The Paris Agreement works of a five year cycle with increasingly ambitious climate action carried out by individual countries.

03:44
Breyton Hill
Every five years each country has to submit an updated National Climate Action Plan. These plans are specific to each country and communicate actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately, the United States has chosen to withdrawn from the Paris Agreement. This marks the second time that the US has withdrawn. However, the last time it was only for about three months until our Presidential administration changed hands. Since the United States is the world's second largest emitter of pollution and greenhouse gases, this has a significant impact of the progress that the rest of the world can do to mitigate climate change. The United States leaving this agreement also affects lower income countries attempting to transition to cleaner energy. Because the United States is no longer contributing to the Green Climate Fund, climate change experts from around the globe have researched and presented the three year threshold.

04:32
Breyton Hill
By 2028, climate change will have severe catastrophic impacts, including significantly higher sea levels which will destroy millions of dollars in coastal property, increased heat waves, intense droughts and stronger storms that will all affect crop production and yield, ultimately affecting the food that's of your table or lack thereof. Marine ecosystems will also be destroyed as the rising sea levels increase the acidification of the ocean. Climate change is a significant issue, so shifting to renewable energy, adopting sustainable transportation and limiting waste is more crucial now than ever. The theme for Earth Day 2026 is our power, Our Planet, which encourages everyone to get involved in the community for Earth Day as progress does not happen in silence, it happens when people show up.

05:16
Breyton Hill
Go to earth day.com to find a map of Earth Day 2026 events in your region, whether that be community cleanups, teach ins, peaceful demonstrations, tree planting, voter registration, town hall meetups or community organizing. Our Power, Our planet is Earth Day's 2026 theme, which as they say of their website, reflects a fundamental truth. Environmental progress does not depend of a single administration or election. It is sustained by daily actions of communities, educators, workers and families protecting where they live and work. As for those in Raleigh, Dorothea Dix park is having a Raleigh earth day from 5pm to 10pm of Friday, April 24, 2026. This marks the fifth annual Family and eco friendly festival celebrating Earth Day. They will have vendors, educational booths, family activities, earth dances, an environmental award and a trash and show.

06:09
Breyton Hill
Finally at 8:15 they will show an outdoor movie documentary of Jane Goodall. If you don't know who Jane Goodall is, join the Raleigh Earth Day or listen to my previous Women in STEM podcast to learn more about her and her incredible legacy. As the Artemis 2 astronauts remarked when they got back from their flight around the moon, it's a special thing to be a human and a special thing to be of planet Earth. Thank you for listening. This is WKNC 88.1. My name is Breyton Hill.

06:42
Shradha Bhatia
This has been Eye on the Triangle from WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1 Raleigh. Our theme song is Krakatoa by Noah Stark, licensed under Creative Commons. To relisten to this or any other episode, visit wknc.org/podcast or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening.