The first Earth Day took place on April 22, 1970, and occurred mainly because a handful of farsighted people understood the damage being inflicted daily on the environment. Th ey understood also that natural resources do not last forever. An increasing rate of environmental disasters, hazardous waste spills, and wholesale destruction of forests, clean water, and other resources convinced Earth Day’s founders that saving the environment would require a determined eff ort from scientists and nonscientists alike. Environmental science thus traces its birth to the early 1970s.