Earth Day, an annual event to foster awareness of our planet’s imperiled environment, began in 1970. Today, 55 years later, our natural world is under attack from policies of plunder and plutocracy, and Earth Day 2025 is more relevant than ever. On Apr. 22, concerned citizens across America will take part in Earth Day 2025 observances to call for protection of our home planet. 

Never has Earth Day been as necessary as now. President Donald Trump has called climate change a hoax and packed his administration with hirelings culled from anti-environmental political organizations and corporate boardrooms. The only “green” that Trump seems to care about is the green in his wallet and the grass on his golf courses. 

On Mar. 1, Trump called for bypassing environmental protections against cutting timber in national forests and on public land. Just weeks later, on Mar. 31, Trump announced he would cut back fuel emission standards for American automobiles. The president pooh-poohed pollution problems and denied that exhaust from millions of cars and trucks is a source of harm to Americans now and in the future. “It doesn’t mean a damn bit of difference for the environment,” he huffed. “It doesn’t matter.” Millions of citizens and scientists would disagree with Trump’s flippant haughtiness that fouling our Earthly nest “doesn’t matter.”

Other U.S. presidents also would disagree with Trump’s cavalier attitude toward America’s air, land and waters. Trump has absurdly compared himself to Abraham Lincoln, but it was Lincoln who in 1864 proclaimed as protected land the area in California now known as Yosemite National Park. Today Trump’s GOP claims to be “the party of Lincoln,” but when he set aside Yosemite as sacred ground, Lincoln said words that should be considered by Trump and his henchmen: “Laws change; people die; the land remains.”

Unlike Trump, presidents of both parties have long advocated protecting America’s natural beauty. Republican Ulysses Grant had a scandal-sullied time in the White House, but the former Civil War general also crusaded against the Ku Klux Klan, and in 1872 he established Yellowstone as America’s first national park. Grant never visited Yellowstone, but his extensive travels in the Wild West convinced him that the region’s beauty should be preserved. Today the Trump crew pushes for budget slashing at Yellowstone and other national parks that are enjoyed by millions of visitors every year.

Republican Benjamin Harrison served only one term during the Gilded Age from 1889–1893. Hoosier Harrison was called an unlikable “Indiana iceberg” by detractors, but he was an avid outdoorsman who spearheaded the protection of land in seven U.S. states and territories while establishing three national parks during his four years in the White House.

Often called “the conservation president,” Republican Theodore Roosevelt is to this day remembered for his efforts on behalf of America’s natural environment. “Teddy” oversaw the creation of 150 national forests, 51 bird sanctuaries and four game preserves. He founded the U.S. Forest Service and pushed the Antiquities Act of 1906 that allowed the president to designate national landmarks. He decried an America where “we turn our rivers and streams into sewers and dumping grounds” and declared, “I do not intend that our natural resources shall be exploited by the few against the interests of the many.”

Democrat Woodrow Wilson was president during America’s entry into World War I, but he won a victory for the environment on the home front when he created the National Park Service in 1916. The service was set up “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects” of America “for the enjoyment of future generations.” Now the National Park Service is under attack by the Trump administration.

Republican Richard Nixon’s regime was toppled by scandal, but it was Nixon who presided over the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Clean Air Act. Democrat Jimmy Carter called for Americans “to not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and grandchildren.”

John F. Kennedy’s words of warning should be heeded by Trump’s team on Earth Day and every day: “The supreme reality of our time is the vulnerability of our planet.”

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