By TIM THORNBERRY
Kentucky Correspondent

MADISON, Wis. — Sunday was Earth Day, last week was Earth Week and all of April has been Earth Month, with celebrations and events happening all over … well, the Earth.

But what exactly is this celebration, and is there really anything to celebrate?

World media are constantly telling us global warming is ultimately going to melt the polar ice caps, causing many of us to take up life on a houseboat or drown. Health organizations are saying many illnesses they are seeing can now be attributed to the rotten air and water we are taking into our bodies. Soon we’ll all don gas masks and rubber suits to protect us from the planet we live upon.

Okay, maybe that’s stretching it a bit – but the condition of the Earth has long been debated, which is one of the reasons Earth Day was begun.

The first Earth Day was on April 22, 1970, the brainchild of then-U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin. American Heritage Magazine called the first Earth Day “one of the most remarkable happenings in the history of democracy” with more than 20 million people participating.

In an essay written by Nelson, he stated, “Actually, the idea for Earth Day evolved over a period of seven years starting in 1962. For several years, it had been troubling me that the state of our environment was simply a non-issue in the politics of the country.”

While the idea was slow to take hold, Nelson continued his efforts over the next few years until September 1969, when he announced at a conference in Seattle that a nationwide “grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment” would be held in the spring of 1970 and everyone was invited to participate.

“Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself,” wrote Nelson.

Since then, Earth Day has seen its share of ups and downs, passing some years with little notice at all. However, more people are catching on to the idea, thanks in part to projects such as the film “An Inconvenient Truth,” about former Vice President Al Gore’s crusade to warn the world of the effects of global warming on Earth and her climate; the United Nation’s Environmental Programme, which helps promote care of the environment throughout the world; and on a smaller scale, many classrooms across the country which have held events to get children informed and involved in routines such as recycling.