As you should know, Wednesday, April 22 is Earth Day. Now, on to a brief history lesson…
According to a National Geographic article, Earth Day began on April 22, 1970 because it was on Wednesday. Which, according to Kathleen Rogers, president of Earth Day Network, was the best part of the week to encourage a big turnout for environmental rallies across the U.S.
“It worked out perfectly, because everybody was at work and they all left,” Rogers said in the article.
And it’s reported that more than 20 million people here in the U.S. participated in the first one. It is now celebrated by more than 1 billion people in 180 nations all over.
[For more info on the historyof Earth Day, check out the article --> Earth Day Facts: When It Is, How It Began, What to Do]
Now you may be [or hopefully, actually are] wondering what you can do. Well, I found these tips on the Better Homes & Garden website.
10 Easy Ways to go Green
- Change a light bulb.
- Unplug things that glow.
- Recycle your electronics.
- Audit your energy.
- Support local farmers.
- Fix that drip.
- Let your grass grow.
- Look for the label.
- Do full loads.
- Work the critters.
Read how these things help here.
Artist Pablo Solomon, taught earth science at “an inner-city school” in Houston in 1970. Earth Day events in Texas, he said, gave him hope that his lessons might find their way into the world at large.
“I can remember how excited I was that there was going to be this effort to draw attention to conservation and environmental preservation on a global scale,” he said in an email. “The young people that went to the Houston school in which I taught were lucky to see nature on a vacant lot, much less on a rainforest scale. But even they seemed to understand what a good thing it would be to live in harmony with nature.
“At that time the Houston Ship Channel was so polluted that it would literally burn on the surface and chemical vapors released from the oil refineries would peel the paint off of cars overnight.”
(From National Geographic)
[...] For 95 more tips to help save the environment, see 100 Ways to Save the Environment. And to get more info on the history of Earth Day, check out last year’s post, Go Green, It’s Earth Day. [...]