Annotated Bibilography, Earthday

Kitchell, Mark. "Watch Film: A Fierce Green Fire." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 25 Apr. 2014.

"A Fierce Green Fire" is an educational video on the movements that lead up to the origin of earth day. This video was produced by Frontline, PBS's educational video source. The video goes through three stories of environmental issues. One is about a woman who lived in an area called Love Canal. Love Canal was seriously polluted by industrial waste that was buried years before in the area and started seeping up through the soil. Almost all of the babies born that year had birth defects and many people were seriously ill. One woman took a stand against this and got the entire community involved in getting the government to get the area cleaned up. This is a reliable source and I plan to use it again on future research.

"Earth Day: The History of A Movement." Earth Day Network Main. Earth Day Network, n.d. Web. 03 May 2014. <http://www.earthday.org/earth-day-history-movement>.

This short educational article explains the origin of earth day and the event surrounding it. It takes a lot to create a movement but with all the commotion surrounding the Vietnam war, the Hippie movement, and the change in industrial standards environmentalists had grounds to stand on to start a revolution. The Vietnam War created distrust in the government and people rose up to stop the slaughter and create a healthier America. America's youth saw the pollution and issues and decided to make a change. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring brought every ones attention to chemical pollution and its likely outcome. In 1970 earth day capitalized on America's new conscious. Its creator Gaylord Nelson came up with the idea after 20 million Americans took to the streets to protest April 22. I believe this is a reliable source because it is a .org website and it follows all of the information I have heard previously.

 "American Experience: TV's Most-watched History Series." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 07 May 2014.

This source has provided a timeline of the environmental movement for the last 60 years beginning in 1948 with the Water Pollution Control Act. Following that act was the first U.S. conference on air pollution as a reaction to 20 deaths due to sulfur dioxide emissions from a steel wire plant. Other noted events were 170-260 New Yorkers killed by smog in 1953.  President Eisenhower's State of the Union address on air pollution in '55 and an amendment to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948. In 1960 CO2 emissions climbed above 300ppm and in '62 "Silent Spring" was published bringing widespread awareness of chemical pollution. '63 the Clean Air Act passed and in '66 the first legislation on endangered species went through. April 22, 1970 was the first Earth Day. Today, we are doing our best to improve emissions and 76% of Americans consider themselves environmentalists.