--United Nations Secretary-General U Thant, March 21, 1971.
What is Earth Day?’
Earth Day is an annual international observance, held on April 22, to increase public awareness of environmental issues. Each year on Earth Day, millions of people throughout the world gather to clean up litter, to protest threats to the environment, and to celebrate progress in reducing pollution.’ (Worldbook)
There is a beautiful flag associated with this day that can be found on the wikipedia site or if you’re on our blog, just click flag. The flag has a dark blue background with a NASA picture of the earth taking up its entire centre.
Let’s Celebrate 22 April
Our southern hemisphere autumnal equinox is on 22 April, and is the day when we have equal amount of day and night. This is a good time for us to increase our appreciation the Earth’s environment and help with its future. However some Australian towns will be celebrating on 13 April.
Facts?
We all know that we are doing lots to harm the earth, and that we could use much less of the world’s resources and do more to take care of our beautiful world. For example; travel and the transport of goods takes lots of energy, consider the following.
- By 2030 the number of automobiles in the world will increase by 50%.
- The world consumes two barrels of oil for every barrel discovered.
- It took 125 years to consume the first trillion barrels of oil – the world will consume the next trillion in only 30 years.
Australian Geographic
As a special dedication to our planet, the National Geographic Channel in Australia is supporting this day with a 24-hour marathon of ‘green’ programs featuring some of our environmental experts. One program that I hope to watch is at 6.30pm ‘Scrap House’ which will show how a house was made from completely recycled items.
The Earth Report will explore events from the perspective of how they and we have affected our planet. This will include: huge floods, tsunamis and deadly droughts, like the one we’re experiencing and worse. It will also include information about new technologies (like new fuel sources) that will and are changing the ways we relate to our world.
Ecological Footprint
On the earthday site, I took the ecological footprint quiz and found that if everyone lived like me, we would need 7.8 planet earths to support us. That’s quite shocking! Most of my high scores came from travel along with goods and services.
So, what can I do?According to the earthday.net site and others, there a number of things each of us can do to help our precious earth.
- Car: drive less, share transport, get tune-ups, drive slower, don’t idle, use an energy efficient car
- House heating and cooling: consider a higher or lower temperature, ceiling fans and insulation
- Light bulbs: replace with compact fluorescents that can last for a decade or more
- Plants: plant water efficient plants (& mulch) which will help with carbon and also provide shading and windbreaks
- Food: buy or grow organic and foods in season, eat local foods (less transportation costs) and also eat less feedlot meat
- Recycle: recycle what you can and buy recycled goods (second-hand bikes, clothes, etc). Op shops are big in the US for many, not just the poor.
- Buy less: most of us buy much more than we need
- Help clean up the environment around us
- Use green cleaning methods:
So let us go forward, not only to celebrate God’s good, green Earth, but to make a small difference ourselves.
Useful Websites
http://earthday.envirolink.org/ http://www.earthday.net/resources/2006materials/Top10.aspx http://www.worldbook.com http://www.earthday.net/Footprint/info.asp
