Eddie Albert and Earth Day

Actor Eddie Albert, perhaps most remembered for his role in the television series Green Acres, was instrumental in the founding of Earth Day. He had been a lifelong birdwatcher, and one year during his daily jogs to the ocean for a swim, he realized that there were little or no baby pelicans. Eventually he found out that a chemical company had dumped many pounds of DDT into the city sewers. This had affected the birds’ reproduction. Albert took an opportunity to talk about this briefly on NBC. That led to several speaking engagements on the topic and to his involvement with and co-founding of Earth Day.  He was one of the speakers at the celebration of the very first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, which was also his sixty-fourth birthday. In fact,

environmentalgraffiti.com says April 22 was chosen for Earth Day specifically to honor Albert, who had been so key in creating the holiday. Albert was also an organic gardener and helped form City Children’s Farms for inner city children.