Dennis appears at Chicago Earthday event.

CHICAGO -- Thousands of environmental activists celebrated Earth Day in Chicago Sunday, cheering the national leadership promised by Democratic Presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich. There was wild cheering as Kucinich promised a 'WGA' to rival FDR's WPA when he wins the White House in 2008.

Kucinich was the only Presidential candidate to speak at one of the largest Earth Day events in the United States. The six-term Congressman, who has a record to back up his leadership for alternative 'green' technologies, told the thousands of activists who gathered at McCormick Place on Lake Shore Drive that his administration will bring prosperity to the United States, as he would support the development of new, clean energies that will be earth friendly.

Kucinich tied the present-day global war to global warming, saying the environmental impact of war is ECOCIDE. The crowd interrupted his speech 30 times with tremendous applause. Kucinich is the only candidate running for the Democratic nomination who led a national effort in the United States Congress against the invasion of Iraq in 2002. While other candidates claim to have provided leadership against the war, Kucinich is the only Democrat running for President who was elected to the Congress at the time of the war vote, and the only candidate to have brought 125 other Congressional leaders to join with him in opposing the rush to war on the dubious claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Elizabeth Kucinich joined her husband as the two received a standing ovation from the thousands of activists who attended the Green Festival in Chicago. The candidate was surrounded by well-wishers who closed in so tightly on the candidate that it took one hour for Kucinich to get out of the building where he had spoken.

The event in Chicago was preceded on Saturday by Kucinich's appearance at the National Action Network in New York, where he was invited by 2004 Presidential candidate Al Sharpton. During that conference, Kucinich was also interrupted by wild applause as he talked about his emergence into political life in his hometown of Cleveland, after a youth that was filled with economic challenges for his family. Kucinich is the oldest of seven children. As renters in Cleveland, the large family was often refused housing. A few times the Kucinich children lived with their mother and father in the family car.