On the first Earth Day in 1970, 20 million people unified their voices for the environment. Today, the Earth Day movement continues to inspire, challenge ideas, ignite passion, and motivate people to action. For the past 46 years, Earth Day Network has worked to broaden and diversify the movement to mobilize it as the most effective vehicle possible for moving towards a sustainable future. Earth Day 2016 will engage over one billion people.

We are now in the countdown to Earth Day’s 50^th anniversary. To honor the occasion, Earth Day Network is setting a new major goal every year from 2015 to 2020. On their own and together, these initiatives will have a significant and measurable impact on the environment and contribute to a cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable planet for all.

The first of these five goals is incredibly ambitious – planting 7.8 billion trees – and we’re starting now.

Why Trees?

Trees combat climate change.

Trees have become a mascot of sorts for the environmental movement. It’s not hard to see why. Trees and forests are vital weapons against climate change. We must reduce the amount of carbon we pump into the air each day, but forests are natural filters that will absorb and cleanse our air of the carbon already there.

Last December, 195 countries together and agreed to tackle climate change on in the Paris Climate Agreement. This Earth Day, more than 150 people of them are coming to sign the agreement at the UN. For the agreement to work as intended, however, individuals and nations need to get planting and help us in our effort to get 7.8 billion trees in the ground by Earth Day 2020. Without these natural carbon sinks, reaching the goals set out in the agreement is simply impossible.

Learn more about carbon dioxide absorption and all the other amazing benefits of trees in our post:Top 5 Reasons To Love Trees.

Trees help us breathe clean air.

In addition to absorbing carbon dioxide and providing us with oxygen to breathe, trees absorb odors and pollutant gases (nitrogen oxides, ammonia, sulfur dioxide and ozone) and filter particulates out of the air by trapping them on their leaves and bark. Trees in your community can improve the local air quality, and forests can do so on an even larger scale.

Trees help communities.

Trees help communities achieve long-term economic and environmental sustainability and provide food, energy and income. Through the Canopy Project, Earth Day Network helps rural and urban communities to conserve, repair, and restore tree cover to their lands. The project provides sapling and seed distribution, urban forestry, agroforestry, tree care training, and accompanying community organizing. These programs empower communities to sustain themselves and their local economies. Learn more about theCanopy Project's impact on communities.

Trees protect life.

Trees carry the vital role protecting the environment and their home ecosystem. They absorb harmful carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and produce the oxygen we all need to breathe. Their roots prevent erosion by holding the soil intact and filter water by removing pollutants. With the reality of increasingly unpredictable weather patterns and more frequent and violent storms/floods, increasing tree cover to prevent devastating soil erosion has never been more important. In rural and high-poverty areas, trees support livelihoods. They act as a source of food or as a cash crop like coffee. Since launching The Canopy Project in 2011, Earth Day Network has planted over 3 million trees in 32 countries, focusing on areas most in need of reforestation. Learn more about theCanopy Project and how you can help.

We can make a difference by planting trees.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and defenseless against the onslaught of climate change. It can feel like your actions are futile. But that is not the case. Actions add up quickly to make a difference. One of the easiest meaningful actions one can take is to plant a tree!

Deforestation is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, responsible for up to 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Deforestation plays such an oversized role in climate change that the 2015 Paris Agreement called for the end of deforestation and the imperative need to include reforestation in national climate goals.

Planting trees – lots and lots of trees – is the best way to counteract deforestation. Help us reach our goal of planting 7.8 billlion trees over the next four years through our#Trees4Earth campaign.

We can make a difference in our schools and universities.

Since the first Earth Day in 1970, Earth Day Network has been a leader in mobilizing the environmental movement through education, public policy, and consumer campaigns. A key component of this effort has been our work with schools and universities. Today’s students are tomorrow’s leaders. To confront the challenges they will face, all students need the best-available, science based information about critical issues such as climate change. School children can take an active role in helping to green their schools by teaming with their teachers, administrators, and parents toplant trees on their school property. Our higher education program,MobilizeU, unites university students and administrators around their common interests of environmental action. Together, they are working towards a sustainable future for all.

Earth Day — celebrating the birth of the modern environmental movement.

The first Earth Day in 1970 gave voice to an emerging awareness and concern for living organisms, the environment, and links between pollution and public health. Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, deemed that air pollution could no longer be accepted just as the smell of prosperity. No longer could the industry sector belch out smoke and sludge, with little fear of legal consequence or bad press. No, Nelson reckoned that the status quo must be changed.

It was time that environmental protection be forced onto the national political agenda. On April 22, 1970, Nelson’s idea for a national day to focus on the environment was realized. Twenty million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values. By the end of that year, the first Earth Day had led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts.

Learn more about thehistory of Earth Day.

Earth Day 2016 — let’s accomplish big things for our planet.

Today, Earth Day is the largest secular observance in the world. Over one billion people observe it in different ways – which is part of its beauty. It’s a day of action that changes human behavior and provokes policy changes. Our fight for a clean environment continues and we cannot waver. The ravages of climate change become more entrenched each day. We are entering the 46^th year of this powerful movement, and we invite you to be a part of Earth Day 2016. Let’s work together towards a future in which Earth Day is a pure celebration of a victory against climate change.

This Earth Day and beyond, let’s make big stuff happen. Let’s plant 7.8 billion trees for the Earth. Let’s divest from fossil fuels and make cities 100% renewable. Let’s take the momentum from the Paris Climate Summit and build on it. #EarthDay2016 #trees4earth

* Your pledge will be counted in Earth Day Network’s “A Billion Acts of Green” campaign.  Learn more about thiscampaign.