Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Happy 50th Birthday Earth Day 2020

For 50 years, Earth Day has been a time honored tradition, growing more and more important as we see more and more the effects of our human impact. As I showcased in my "5 Decades of Environmentalism" this past fall, we've made a lot of strides to be proud of in these 50 years.

This year, Earth Day won't be marked in marches on Washington or major community clean up events due to the global health issues from Covid-19. However, now, perhaps more than ever, community has taken on greater meaning, and we see the effects of that human impact in major cities that have been pollution-free for weeks for the first time ever, based on our staying home efforts. Additionally, the impact of contaminated waste (such as discarded gloves or masks road side or in parking lots) may be seen by many more (than ever before) for the health problem that they are.

From Earth Day Network's website:


So in honor of that, what can you do this unusual Earth Day? Turns out, a lot:

1. You can join Earth Day Goes Digital With 24 Hours of Action.
During the 24 hours of today, April 22nd Earth Day, Earth Day Network will have a lot of digital "global conversations, calls to action, performances, video teach-ins and more. "

2. Find Digital Earth Day Events.

3. Make Earth-friendly decisions in your home.

4. Do an individual clean up as part of Earth Day Networks' Great Global Clean Up.
Given the social distancing, you should not take part in any group events! Additionally, please take proper precautions if you are handling waste. During this time of coronavirus, gloves and possibly even masks should be worn during clean up. For other individual clean up help, check out their website. Then mark yours on the map!

5. Be a part of the Earth Day Challenge 2020.


What is Earth Challenge 2020? An effort to bring together citizen scientists to empower people around the world to take action for the environment. By tying together mobile technology and open citizen science data, Earth Day Network, the Wilson Center, the U.S. Department of State, and more organizations are working together and hoping to create the biggest citizen science event ever.

Do you need to be a scientist--no! That's the beauty. You can be an average person that helps collect data on all sorts of environmental data--in a myriad of areas such as plastic pollution, water quality, air quality, biodiversity, and more. This data then will be gathered in a central database, which then can help promote environmental policy and education.

And yes, there's an app for that--both for Apple devices & Android. The information will support their 6 Earth Challenge 2020 research areas:
Whatever you do this Earth Day, take a minute and do something that makes a difference. Just think what kind of world we would live in if we all did just that. 
The power of one can be downright enormous! 

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