1962 book Silent Spring about declining bird populations due to DDT, an insecticide, pollutant, and man's attempts to control nature through the use of synthetic substances. Her core message for her readers was to identify the complex and fragile ecosystem and the threats facing the population. In 1958, Carson started to work on her last book, with an idea that nature needs human protection. Her influence was radioactive fallout, smog, food additives, and pesticide use. Carson's main focus was on pesticides, which led her to identify nature as fragile and the use of technology dangerous to humans and other species. Both of these books helped bring the issues into the public eye Rachel Carson's Silent Spring sold over two million copies and is linked to a nationwide ban on DDT and the creation of the EPA. Beginning in 1969 and continuing into the 1970s, Illinois-based environmental activist James F. Phillips engaged in numerous covert anti-pollution campaigns using the pseudonym "the Fox." His activities included plugging illegal sewage outfall pipes and dumping toxic wastewater produced by a US Steel factory inside the company's Chicago corporate office. Phillips' "ecotage" campaigns attracted considerable media attention and subsequently inspired other direct action protests against environmental destruction. The first Earth Day was celebrated on 22 April 1970. Its founder, former Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, was inspired to create this day of environmental education and awareness after seeing the oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara in 1969. Greenpeace was created in 1971 as an organization that believed that political advocacy and legislation were ineffective or inefficient solutions and supported non-violent action. 1980 saw the creation of Earth First!, a group with an ecocentric view of the world – believing in equality between the rights of humans to flourish, the rights of all other species to flourish and the rights of life-sustaining systems to flourish. In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, several events illustrated the magnitude of environmental damage caused by humans. In 1954, a hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll exposed the 23-man crew of the Japanese fishing vessel Lucky Dragon 5 to radioactive fallout. The incident is known as Castle Bravo, the largest thermonuclear device ever detonated by the United States and the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests. In 1967 the oil tanker ran aground off the coast of Cornwall, and in 1969 oil spilled from an offshore