#international flags

April 22nd is Earth Day, a day for celebrating our home planet and committing to help protect it and fix the damage we've done to our environments. There are a number of flags related to environmentalism, as well as several proposals for flags for the planet itself. Let's take a look!

The Earth Flag (1970)

The most widespread flag for the Planet Earth, and the flag most commonly associated with Earth Day specifically, is a dark blue banner charged with a picture of the earth--usually NASA's The Blue Marble, although earlier flags used different images. The flag was designed in 1969 by John McConnell, an activist influential in organizing the first Earth Day in San Francisco, California. McConnell would go on to found the Earth Day Foundation and encourage the use of the flag on Earth Day. For this reason, this flag is widely associated with the holiday in particular.

McConnell poses with the Earth Day flag at his home in Denver, Colorado, in 2008. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Ecology Flag

In 1969, Ron Cobb published his idea for a symbol for ecology--the letters e and o, standing for environment and organism respectively, superimposed on one another, forming a Greek letter theta. The theta is associated with the Greek word thanatos, meaning death, a reminder of the threats posed by humans to the environment, and of humankind's responsibility to minimize those threats.

The next year, Jack Shepherd, senior editor of Look magazine, incorporated this symbol into a flag. Based visually on the flag of the United States, the flag has thirteen green and white stripes. The green represents unspoiled land, and white symbolizes clean air.

The flag was most widespread in the 1970s, although it sees continued usage today.

Left: Students carry the ecology flag through downtown Chicago, Illinois, on Earth Day 1970. Source: headlineclub.org.

Right: The ecology flag flown at the People's Climate March in Washington, D.C., 2017. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Cadle Flag

In 1970, Illinois farmer James Cadle designed a flag to represent the planet Earth. It shows a simplified representation of the solar system, with the sun, earth and moon visible as yellow, blue, and white circles respectively, on a black field.

The flag is particularly popular among scientists involved in the search for extraterrestrial life, and flies at many such research facilities around the world.

The Flag of Earth flying at half-mast in memory of Carl Sagan at Ohio State University's "Big Ear" radio observatory, August 1997. Source: flagofearth.com.

International Flag of the Planet Earth (Pernefeldt Flag)

In 2015, Swedish graphic design student Oskar Pernefeldt designed a flag to represent the planet Earth. It is a blue flag charged with seven interconnected white rings. These symbolize the interconnectedness of life on Earth, and their number indicates the seven continents and the seven seas. Together they appear to form a flower.

This flag has seen much support since its inception, and is currently the most widespread flag for Earth aside from McConnell's Earth Day flag.

A Temple of Peace at Dutch Design Week

At this year’s Dutch Design Week, a six-tiered pyramid appeared in the main square of Ketelhuisplein in Eindhoven, wrapped in colorful flags displaying 80 symbols of peace. Each flag of the Temple of Peace was created in collaboration between a recent design graduate and a refugee – from countries like Syria, Ukraine, Russia, Yemen, and Palestine. The project was conceived by Ingeborg Bloem and Stefany Rietkerk, founders of the non-profit Peace Seekers Foundation, to generate new symbols for peace, given the current prevalence of armed conflicts greater than at any time since the Second World War.

The structure, inspired by the multi-tiered Buddhist pagodas of Nepal, was designed by Bloem, while the flags, reminiscent of Tibetan prayer flags, were created through workshops involving refugees and students from Dutch art schools in a kind of creative “speed dating” format.

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Thanks for the compliment!! 🌷🌷

I don't want to criticize the "Overcoming" flag too much, because A) I don't want to start "Flag Discourse," B) it was also (like mine, albeit independently) made to represent multiple disabilities, rather than using one symbol to represent us all, and -- most important --C) has already been adopted by the U.N., and is recognized by leaders around the world.

So it's important, I think, that people know what it is, what it represents, and what people are trying to say when they fly it.

I think it's fine, as flags go. I just don't think it's enough to represent our fight for freedom and equity on the grass-roots scale -- the Paralympics, the U.N., government officials -- all of that is stuff is at the multi-national, official policy level. It's important, but it's not visceral. It's not personal. I designed this flag (What nickname should I give it? it deserves something cool), from the beginning, to be a personal statement -- and to be used as a marker for social gatherings (online or irl).

As I understand it, the Overcoming Flag wasn't even designed on a computer, much less meant to be viewed on one. -- it was sewn together from silk panels. And when it is flown, it's generally from flagpoles on top of government buildings (it being an official U.N. Flag), where further haze from the air makes the colors softer (and also smaller and farther away).