Most of us private citizens do not know the real meaning of Earth Day. It was first conceived in April 22nd 1970 by Senator Gaylord Nelson. He was a advent environmentalist and in this time in office pushed through many bills that have demonstrated to be very beneficial to the environment. The main purpose of Earth Day was to unite the different environmental groups nationwide and provide a platform for them to send home the message of conservation.

The main theme of the day is to remind citizens of the earth for the need for conservation. It provided a platform for environmentalists to call on nations, global policy makers and even private citizens for the need to conserve our precious environment.

As a result of their efforts great progress has been seen in two main areas, namely the usage of renewable resources and also the production and distribution of natural products which were made with the overall environment in mind. A large part of the conservation message also was regarding the use of synthetic chemical fertilizers and the horrible damage that they do to the environment over the long-run.

Although very cheap to purchase and use the true costs of synthetic fertilizer werent fully know. Only after many years of use will the true costs become apparent. The unforeseen costs are a severe drop in the fertility of soil and farmland and eventual death or desertification of soils. The initial application yields are the greatest but are only available on a sloping yield curve. The synthetic chemical fertilizers will kill the soil that they are applied too over time causing the farmland to be unusable and probably bankruptcy for the farmer.

In addition to damaging soils and destroying long term natural fertility, the run-off leached from the use of highly soluble fertilizer has also caused huge damage to the surrounding water systems such as lakes and rivers who suffer from the access nitrification which causes access weed growth, algae blooms and eventual death of most of the fish in the water systems. This level of upset in the eco system has been likened to the affects of oil spills.

The best method to mitigate this problem is to shift from the use of synthetic chemical fertilizer to natural organic fertilizers. Over the long-term the real costs of using organic fertilizers are far less than those provided by chemical fertilizer. With organic fertilizers, there is almost no way you can harm soil except if you apply over 100 times the recommended dosage. Over time soil and farmlands will improve with the use of organic fertilizers and yields would either maintain or increase.

Organic fertilizers use natural raw products such as fish, seaweed or even common waste to make fertilizers. Whatever is taken from the earth in terms of raw input is returned directly to the earth as the final product. There is very little waste and no imbalances in the natural ecology that occur when these fertilizers are applied. Plants and soils will greatly benefit from these fertilizers as they nourish the soil and provide vital nutrients that synthetic fertilizers have no hope in providing.

The next step in the message of Earth Day is to get private citizens more involved in the conservation movement. Over the last 40 years, great strides have been achieved with governments and multinational corporations in adopting green practices. Now the focus is on local private citizens and how then can further the cause for global preservation and conservation. The first thing people can do is to adopt the use of natural organic fertilizer. Lawn fertilizers are normally chemical and with thousands of homes using them they are almost as devastating to the environment as widespread use in the early post-war era on farmland.

Although we have made dire mistakes in the past by neglecting the needs of our ecosystem we are by no means beyond saving ourselves. We instead need to be steadfast and look to the future. It is only through our work that our children can enjoy the 100th anniversary of Earth Day looking back saying that their parents succeeded in making a difference.