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Several Riverside Middle School students are reflected in the waters of the Rock River during a p

Switching off a light in the next room or tossing a used soda can in the recycle bin is much more routine than it was 35 years ago; a time when there were grassroots recycle campaigns, nonexistent clean air acts and warnings of the Great Lakes being polluted by oil refineries, paper mills and city sewage plants.

On April 22, 1970, with the creation of the first Earth Day, people made an effort to attend to the Earth’s problems in an attempt to reverse the dissipation of its natural resources. The same year, the Environmental Protection Agency was formed to issue and monitor environmental laws. Earth Day, which started in San Francisco among an all-age crowd of citizens, has spread to hundreds of nations worldwide.

UCLA students and faculty took active roles in the Earth Day events Thursday on campus which aimed to address the main issues affecting the environment today: energy conservation, water pollution and the damages of greenhouse gases on the atmosphere.

“It gives us a day not only to celebrate that we have the Earth but it also gives environmental groups a chance to make a lot of noise about a lot of problems,” said Aliya Haq, campus organizer for the UCLA California Public Interest Research Group chapter. “Individuals can take action themselves in protecting the health of the planet.”

“The U.S. consumes 25 percent of the Earth’s resources and makes up 4 percent of the population,” said Steven Strong, founder of Solar Design Associates, who visited UCLA on Thursday on an invitation by CALPIRG to speak about potential energy solutions in California. Solar Design Associates is a design firm specializing in the use of solar power in buildings.

CALPIRG is working to help pass a bill to install solar panels in half of all new homes built. These panels would serve as a cost-effective energy source for homes in that the energy could be routed to all home appliances and circuits.

“Especially in California we have some of the worst air pollution problems in the country. Solar power would reduce our dependence on fossil fuels which will run out soon,” said Haq.

Strong explained the futility of continuing to search for more oil fields.

“It is like looking for an elephant in your house,” he said. “There are no more oil fields in Saudi Arabia to find. We’ve drilled Swiss cheese through all of them.”

In addition to fossil fuels, John Rosenfeld, professor emeritus in the department of geology, cited the large population as a source of many issues.

“The overriding problem is a social problem and that is population. We have a problem with people struggling and competing with one another for ever-diminishing resources,” Rosenfeld said.

In addition, the extinction of a variety of species impacts the Earth in a far-reaching manner, he said.

“There are all sorts of unforeseen consequences when we ignore the interdependence of species,” Rosenfeld said.

The release of mercury into drinking water sources in the east, mainly due to the burning of soft coal, is a danger both to humans and to fish life in the area, Rosenfeld said.

“We have to start learning to live on the Earth with a much smaller footprint than we’re putting on it right now,” he added

Student groups say that much of the hindrance in improving the environment lies in the lack of voice demanding more stringent protection policies from politicians.

“We need to get some new people into office who care about this,” Rosenfeld said. Strong said there are two clear paths ahead for the future of environmental issues.

“I believe there is a fork in the road ahead; we can embrace resource conservation and environmental preservation or we can continue to accelerate resource depletion which will lead to strife, war and at the limit-extinction,” Strong said.