Apr 21, 200603:02 PMThe Life

Earth Day + 36: tomorrow

April 22, 1970: twenty million people take to the streets, parks and auditoriums, to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment. In addition to massive coast-to-coast rallies, thousands of colleges and universities organize protests against the deterioration of the ecosphere.

July 9, 1970: President Nixon declares his intention to establish the Environmental Protection Agency. After the bill passes through Congress, the EPA comes into being on December 2, 1970.

December 31, 1970: P.L. 91-604 goes into effect - Congress has amended the Clean Air Act to set national air quality, auto emission and anti-pollution standards.

March 28, 2001: President Bush rejects the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

August 29, 2005: Hurricane Katrina makes landfall in southeast Louisiana, becoming the most destructive and costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. (See Greenhouse Warming and Weather Extremes, from the Meteorological Service of Canada.)

April 4, 2006: The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration has collected "the highest total number of [tornado] reports for the first three months of the year since 1999 [....] The number of deaths so far is the highest since 1998. [...] Typically, the busiest months for tornadoes are April, May and June." Here is NOAA's graph of tornado reports for 2002 (pink), 2003 (blue), 2004 (yellow), 2005 (green), 2006 (red), 10-year average (light grey) and 30-year average (dark grey):



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