International Earth Day is celebrated on April 22! This year, cities are marking the day with car-free days and free public transport passes, businesses are making an effort towards sustainability, and neighborhoods are hosting community cleanups and tree plantings. Earth Day is a time to re-focus on the ways we can make our daily lives more planet-friendly by being responsible about our consumption and waste, and to shine a brighter light on the problems facing our only planetary home like climate change, pollution, and habitat destruction.
Earth Day isn’t just for tree huggers anymore. The threats against Mother Earth are threats against us all. Climate change is one of the top crises facing our generation and the next, and there’s no one it won’t touch.
Sometimes it can feel like these problems are too big to face or already too far advanced to fix. In some ways, it’s true; global problems require global solutions. The biggest polluters are corporations, and their biggest enablers are governments. Sorting your recycling doesn’t seem so important in the face of industrial chemical spills and expanded oil drilling.
But another truth is this: there is power in numbers. Small changes and growing awareness of the issues really can move the needle. We can’t allow ourselves to slip from despair into complacency into apathy. Instead, Earth Day asks us to dive in head first–to do what we can for our local environments and to leverage that work into advocating for our precious global ecosystem.
Grow a native plant garden. Eat meals that flow with the rhythm of the seasons. Explore methods of making your home life more sustainable, and introduce your little ones to the wonders of the natural world. When we all pitch in, we all benefit. Celebrate this Earth Day your way, and show our beautiful blue marble a little love.
Earth Day 2023 – Home, Garden, Gift, Advocacy
Earth Day 2023 – Craft and Creativity
