It's no small irony that Nelson founded "Earth Day" on the centenary of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's birthday.

Today is Earth Day, the ecofascists’ favorite day of the year. Here are some excerpts from Mark Alexander’s 2010 essay on the real origin and use of this socialist celebration.

It’s that time of year again — that time when the northern hemisphere will be warming, as it has for millions of years, except during ice ages.

Since most of the world’s industrial capacity and economic wealth is located north of the equator, this means that the now-perennial onset of global warming hysteria is about to sprout into full bloom.

On 22 April 1970, Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-WI) founded “Earth Day” in order to launch an annual “teach in” about conservation and environmental concerns.

Of course, conservation is not a bad word — it even shares the same root word as “conservative.” Indeed, our family makes every effort to use energy and resources wisely. The “waste not, want not” principle is good economic practice.

However, the Left’s motives for “Earth Day” don’t stop at educating folks about conservation and environmental preservation. Those objectives provide cover for a much more sinister purpose — using ecological concern to justify all manner of government regulation and intervention.

It’s no small irony that Nelson founded “Earth Day” on the centenary of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s birthday, as it was the impetus for creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

Nelson modeled his anti-capitalist protests after anti-Vietnam War demonstrations of that era, and the so-called “environmental movement” he helped spawn has devolved from a pack of unwashed adolescent peaceniks and malcontents into a slick, influential and well funded cadre of Lefty politicos. (This would be the same movement that protested against nuclear energy, which yields no carbon dioxide as a byproduct of energy production.)

Nelson’s cadre has managed, by way of the EPA, to implement an enormous hidden tax burden on the American people — more than a trillion dollars last year — in the form of runaway environmental regulations, which surreptitiously increase the prices of products and services.

And as far as climate change?