This website is managed by the Southern Nevada Group of the Sierra Club. Monthly General Meetings are held the second Monday of every month (except August) from 7:00pm to 8:30pm. Please see the Sierra Club Southern Nevada Group official website for current location of the monthly meeting. Come join us!
Earth Day 2013
Find information about Earth Day 2013 events in Las Vegas on the Calendar of Events page, including information about the newly combined GREENfest and Festival of Communities event on April 20, 2013.
Earth Day 2012
Enduring record heat, Native Americans in southern Nevada led a three-day, 50-mile Cultural Healing Walk over Earth Day weekend to draw attention to the devastating effects of coal pollution on their community. The Moapa Band of Paiutes partnered with the Sierra Club to organize the walk and Earth Day rally, which drew members of several tribal nations and supporters from throughout the Southwest.
Read about the big Earth Day 2012 event from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
What is Earth Day
From the Earth Day Network website
Each year, Earth Day — April 22 — marks the anniversary of what many consider the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970.
The height of hippie and flower-child culture in the United States, 1970 brought the death of Jimi Hendrix, the last Beatles album, and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water”. Protest was the order of the day, but saving the planet was not the cause. War raged in Vietnam, and students nationwide increasingly opposed it.
At the time, Americans were slurping leaded gas through massive V8 sedans. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. “Environment” was a word that appeared more often in spelling bees than on the evening news. Although mainstream America remained oblivious to environmental concerns, the stage had been set for change by the publication of Rachel Carson’s New York Times bestseller Silent Spring in 1962. The book represented a watershed moment for the modern environmental movement, selling more than 500,000 copies in 24 countries and, up until that moment, more than any other person, Ms. Carson raised public awareness and concern for living organisms, the environment and public health.
Earth Day 1970 capitalized on the emerging consciousness, channeling the energy of the anti-war protest movement and putting environmental concerns front and center.
Read the rest of the story on the Earth Day Network Website
See pictures from previous Earth Day activities in southern Nevada
See video from previous Earth Day activities in southern Nevada
What is Earth Hour
In 2007, WWF-Australia inspired Sydney-siders to show their support for climate change action in the first ever Earth Hour event. It showed that everyone, from children to CEOs and politicians, has the power to change the world they live in. In Sydney, Australia, 2.2 million individuals and more than 2,000 businesses turned their lights out for one hour to take a stand against climate change.
In 2008, the plan was to take Earth Hour to the rest of Australia. But then the City of Toronto, Canada, signed up and it wasn’t long before 35 countries and almost 400 cities and towns were part of the event. It said something compelling to the world: that the climate challenges facing our planet are so significant that change needs to be global.
With the invitation to ‘switch off’ extended to everyone, Earth Hour quickly became an annual global event. It’s scheduled on the last Saturday of every March – closely coinciding with the equinox to ensure most cities are in darkness as it rolled out around the Earth.
In 2011, Earth Hour saw hundreds of millions of people across 135 countries switch off for an hour. But it also marked the start of something new – going Beyond the Hour to commit to lasting action on climate change. And with the power of social networks behind the Earth Hour message, we hope to attract even more participation so we can build a truly global community committed to creating a more sustainable planet.
Read more on the Earth Hour website
