By Sister Jane Gegg, ASC

Were you around for the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, the brainchild of the late Senator and environmentalist Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin?

Thinking back on that time, I recall that Rachel Carson’s 1962 groundbreaking work, “Silent Spring,” which documented pesticide use and other harms to the Earth, was fresh in our memory.

Months after the first Earth Day celebration in April 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency was established by order of President Nixon.