Daisy Dobrijevic & Elzabeth Howell
Earth Day is an annual event that started in 1970 when 20 million Americans — 10% of the population of the U.S. at the time — came together to demonstrate the importance of increasing protection for our planet.
Nowadays, it works with more than 150,000 partners in over 192 countries with 1 billion individuals involved, according to the official Earth Day website. Earth Day celebrates our planet and highlights the need to hold sectors accountable for their role in the environmental crisis, according to the official Earth Day website earthday.org.
The official Earth Day 2026 theme is “Our Power, Our Planet.”
According to earthday.org, from its 1970 origins to a global movement, Earth Day 2026 highlights the power we all have to protect our planet. Every year on April 22, Earth Day reminds us of the power we have to protect our planet and in 2026, that message feels more relevant than ever. What began as a grassroots environmental protest in 1970 has grown into a global movement uniting more than a billion people worldwide.
In the face of alarming phrases like “code red for humanity” and growing concerns about climate change, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and unsure of where to start. However, Earth Day serves as a reminder that small, meaningful actions taken by individuals and communities can create a big impact.
“Everyone accounted for, and everyone accountable,” earthday.org states.
Environmental problems have become so urgent and widespread that scientists and environmental organisations alike are saying that addressing climate change is more urgent than ever. Jane Goodall, a chimpanzee researcher for the past 60 years, is among those scientists calling for a whole-systems approach to examining how to protect our climate.
“None of us can do it alone. It’s quite ridiculous. The problems are huge,” Goodall said at the 2021 Nature Conservancy in California Summit, available on YouTube.
“We need every single organisation that cares about the future of the planet to get together and to work out ways that we can share these small pools of money available, and find ways of lobbying those billionaires who have so much money to help us so that we don’t have to fight and squabble over funding,” Goodall added.
The theme highlights a simple but powerful idea: meaningful environmental change doesn’t rely on governments alone; it’s driven by the everyday actions of people around the world.
Rather than focusing on a single issue, the 2026 campaign emphasizes collective action, encouraging communities, schools, businesses, and individuals to take practical steps to protect the environment where they live.
Earth Day events take place in many countries around the world. Consult the official hub to see what is taking place close to you.
The official Earth Day website has a list of activities that you can get involved in to be part of the movement. You can also sign up to volunteer with earthday.org, become an Earth Day member, and even register your own Earth Day event for people to take part in.
Agencies like NASA have a helpful Earth Day toolkit, which includes great resources and Earth Day activities for you to enjoy in the community or at home. The Old Farmer’s Almanac also has 10 mini-activities that you can do, such as planting flowers to attract pollinating creatures like bees, stopping pesticide use in your garden, and managing your water consumption carefully.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency notes that 1970 was a very different world for all of us. Not only was there no Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, nor even an EPA, but overall, “there were no legal or regulatory mechanisms to protect our environment,” the agency states.
Americans and others, however, were already aware of the toll on the environment that chemicals were taking. Events such as the publication of Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring” (1962), which showed the environmental effects of chemicals, and a 1969 oil slick fire on Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River, both caught a lot of public attention, according to History.com.
That began to change in 1969, when Senator Gaylord Nelson (D.-Wis.) borrowed from the idea of anti-Vietnam War “teach-ins”, or discussions, on campuses across the United States, History.com added. Nelson, an environmentalist, wanted to adopt the same type of grassroots approach to protecting the environment. It was Nelson who first announced the concept of an Earth Day in the fall of 1969, and following massive public support, the first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970.
My primary objective in planning Earth Day was to show the political leadership of the nation that there was broad and deep support for the environmental movement,” Nelson, who died in 2005, said in 1980.
“While I was confident that a nationwide peaceful demonstration of concern would be impressive, I was not quite prepared for the overwhelming response that occurred on that day,” Nelson continued.
“Two thousand colleges and universities, 10,000 high schools and grade schools, and … more than 20 million Americans participated in one of the most exciting and significant grassroots efforts in the history of this country.”
While protecting our planet has always been a theme of Earth Day, that call for coverage is becoming more urgent by the year. In August 2021, worldwide scientists released the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, which is a state of affairs of human-caused climate change.
This latest report was so alarming that António Guterres, the United Nations secretary-general, termed it “a code red for humanity.” Guterres noted that the IPCC has been asking for years to limit global warming worldwide to 1.5 degrees Celsius. As of the 2021 report, the average is already 1.2 degrees.
“The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk,” Guterres added in the statement.
“Global heating is affecting every region on Earth, with many of the changes becoming irreversible … The only way to prevent exceeding this threshold is by urgently stepping up our efforts and pursuing the most ambitious path.”
While experts sometimes disagree about the impact of climate change, the fact that it is happening and the fact that it is caused by humans is fully agreed upon by the climate community. The IPCC is one tool by which experts seek to minimise and manage the damaging effects of climate change, which are sure to continue for many more decades at least.
To take a single aspect of global change monitoring that feeds into IPCC reporting, we can point to the value of Earth-observing satellites observing the effects of climate change from space.
Satellites can see the impact of wildfires, melting ice, seasonal warming or shifting, increasing floods and other effects of climate change. Decision-makers use satellites and artificial intelligence to predict crop yields, sea levels, extreme weather like tornadoes, and other effects with direct impacts on humans and the ecosystem.
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Daisy Dobrijevic joined Space.com in February 2022, having previously worked as a staff writer for All About Space magazine. She completed an editorial internship with BBC Sky at Night Magazine and worked at the National Space Centre, communicating space science to the public.
Elizabeth Howell – Contributing Writer