Earth Day has been observed on April 22 every year since 1970 after peace activist John McConnell proposed it at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco to demonstrate support for environmental protection. It is now coordinated by the Earth Day Network and celebrated worldwide.
Ever since then thousands of people have took to the street to demand a healthy and sustainable environment. Colleges and universities organize protests against the deterioration of the environment.
Environmental groups have sought to make Earth Day into a day of action to change human behavior and provoke policy changes against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife and other common goals.
On Earth Day 2016, world leaders from 120 countries including the United States and China are expected to sign the landmark Paris Agreement signed during the 21st Conference of Parties (COP) under the auspices of the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in December 2015. The agreement is seen one of the most ambitious agreement to target global warming and climate change and will enter in force.
Google also celebrates Earth day with a series of doodles on its homepage calling it “the one day that transcends culture, language, and tradition.” The Google logo morphs to depict, in turn, a polar bear in the tundra, a red fox in the forest, an elephant in the grasslands, a tortoise in the desert and an octopus in the ocean, with a different one appearing each time one visits the site’s homepage.
