A yellow band on my right arm reminds me almost daily that every day can and should be the Earth Day. I got this band from the International Earth Day Network’s representative, when she participated the first celebration of this sort in Moscow, Russia. It was organised one year ago, in April 2006, when a couple of my friends and ex-colleagues from Greenpeace, WWF, Biodiversity Conservation Center and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) got together to bring this green spring holiday to the Russian capital city for the first time in its history.

“But what is the Earth Day?”, you may ask. Its history goes back to 1960–70's, when the environmental concerns were on the rise and the green movement was forming. In 1969 the US Senator Gaylord Nelson took trip to Santa Barbara to witness a terrible oil spill off the coastal area. He was shaken by the sight of the catastrophe and so he became determined, in his own words, “to shake up the political establishment and force this issue onto the national agenda”. Upon returning to Washington he managed to pass a bill designating April 22nd as a national day of an Environmental Teach-in, or a day to celebrate the Earth.

And so on April 22nd, more than 20 million Americans went out to streets, parks, into concert halls and school classrooms to demonstrate for a healthy nature and liveable environment. My friend John Roseman, who was working with us on the Earth Day preparations in Moscow, attended that very first event 37 years ago, in New York City’s Central Park. He recalled that the events across the country were modeled on the highly effective Vietnam War protests of that time. Two years after the first Earth Day Olof Palme connected these two issues of peace and environment, when he demanded at the UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm for the USA “to stop the ecological war [in Vietnam] immediately”.

The first Earth Day in 1970 was a great success. It made this day a very popular holiday among Americans, gave boost to development of the emerging environmental movement (one year after that Greenpeace was born in Canada), and caused a political consolidation among Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, urban dwellers and farmers, tycoons and labor leaders around the environmental protection issue. That first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species acts. Senator Nelson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom – the highest honour given to civilians in the United States – for his role as the Earth Day founder.

Twenty years after that, in 1990, 200 million people in 141 countries of the world participated the Earth Day activities. It gave a huge boost to recycling efforts worldwide and helped to prepare ground for the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

In 2006 in Moscow and around the world the day’s main theme was climate change. The goal was to attract attention of the public and politicians to this urgent issue, to make them start to act immediately to prevent or at least mitigate the catastrophic consequences of the global warming. The events were focusing on positive and practical solutions for the climate change mitigation and adaptation, rather than trying to scare public once again with the dark visions of yet another doomsday. That’s why it was such an incredible atmosphere of festival and celebration which ruled that sunny April day in Moscow. Hundreds of cyclists hit the streets shocking and entertaining at the same time the Moscow’s car-drivers who never saw anything similar in the traffic-congested megapolis. Delicious vegan foods from the pacifist anarchist initiative “Food Not Bombs” were served at the concert where socially-progressive and environmentally-aware bands performed their best hits. The musicians were rewarded with customised bicycles, and even the Moscow’s mayor Yuri Luzhkov got one!

As we all know now, 2006 became the year of the “turning tide” in the public and governmental perception of the threat of climate change and their willingness to act – both on individual and state levels. I like to believe that the Earth Day in April and Climate Manifestations around the world in November all contributed their share to this sharp raise in awareness and readiness to move past denial, through ignoring and beyond empty talks in protecting the planet’s future.

One year has passed since that day, and I found myself in Lund, studying at the Lund University International Master’s Programme in Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science (this very long title has a cute abbreviation LUMES). Still, the bright memories of the Earth Day were very alive in my mind, and as the new spring was coming to Lund, the idea of bringing here a similar kind of celebration was born among me and my friends in the student environmental organisation Hållbart Universitet. The initiative was also supported by my LUMES classmates and our friends at the Human Ecology division. The educational facility and children’s free-time activities centre Sankt Hansgården in Norra Fäladen, committed to teaching kids the values of sustainability and care for the environment, was chosen to be the event’s location. The date was fixed on Saturday, April 21st. The St Hansgården’s staff and the kids themselves embraced the idea with huge enthusiasm. The weeks of planning and preparations led to the present vision of the day, which will begin at 11.00 in the morning and will be filled with games, music, quizzes, dances, garbage collection, sports, story-telling – all of these united by the concept of environmental education and promoting a more harmonic co-existence of Humanity and Nature, all sharing the same small beautiful planet.

One particular issue stands apart from these Saturday’s activities. Just like “Climate Change Solutions” was the Earth Day’s motto in 2006, this year it’s a strong Anti-Nuclear voice that civil society raises throughout the world, in places set as far apart as Japan, Iran, Russia, the US and Sweden. All of these are characterised by their governments’ recent push for more acceptance of the flawed concept of the so-called ‘Nuclear Renaissance’. The fears of nuclear weapons proliferation in Iran, new Chernobyl-like accidents in Russia, launch of the highly radioactive nuclear waste “treatment” facility in Japan, diverting funds from renewable energy sources and biofuels in USA, and missing the 2010 target on phasing out the nuclear energy (while still having half of its electricity coming from the nuclear power plants) in Sweden – all of these reinforce the choice of anti-nuclear theme for the Earth Day 2007. In Sweden’s context this issue becomes especially sensitive, as the country takes upon itself quite ambitious obligations to fight climate change, but how it’s going to reconcile conflicting processes of striving to utilise more of the climate-neutral energy (while demand for it is growing steadily) and eliminating the nuclear power from the national energy pool – remains unclear. In this situation, when the government prefers not to take any decision at all, and some political parties revoke their originally strong commitment to the nuclear phase-out, it’s the civil society’s voice that must show the politicians direction which Swedes choose to take when it comes to defining the future energy policies of the nation. St Hansgården’s visitors will be able to witness the very practical solutions for electricity generation implemented there: the custom-built windmill and a couple of solar panels provide enough energy for the big house where animals (rabbits, sheep and goats) are being kept. On April 21st an exhibition of alternative sources of energy will be hosted there, and the interested participants will be offered more information on the dangers and drawbacks of the nuclear industries.

All in all, the Saturday on April 21st is promising to become one of the brightest and sunny events of this spring in Lund! St Hansgården, located behind Fäladsgården in Norra Fäladen, will open its doors from 11.00 in the morning, and everyone will be very welcome by the friendly volunteers staging many activities equally appealing to people of all ages, lifestyles and different cultural backgrounds. Come and join us there to enjoy each other’s company and appreciate Nature together!