As April 22 rolls around again this year, people all over the world are celebrating Earth Day in creative ways.
The idea of an “Earth Day” was first proposed at a UNESCO conference in San Francisco in 1969. The original day was going to be on March 21, the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, but was changed to the now April 22 in 1970.
Earth Day began as a United States based celebration, but by 1990 more than 140 nations had participated in the holiday. The evidence of Earth Day awareness is obvious everywhere you look, both local and global. Google changed its logo for Earth Day, as they do for many important days in the year.
Last Saturday, Oxford’s annual Earthfest was held on slant walk, with booths from many participating green organizations and fun activities for children and adults alike. Green Oxford held its Earth Day 5K the morning of April 13. Cincinnati participated in their Earth Day festival last Saturday, with their theme being “One Earth…One Chance.”The Nature Conservancy is running a campaign to get people to get outside and picnic on this Earth Day, to help people understand the importance of just being in nature.
The EPA is also running a fun campaign called “pick five for the environment.” On their website, they list six categories, water, air, land, energy, waste and advocacy. You can click on each category which gives you several ways that you can help with that area of the planet. For example, clicking on “water” gives you the option of using only the water you need and reusing whenever possible, or helping to keep water clean by using only certain cleaning products, or disposing of medications and solid/liquid wastes responsibly, and finally, protecting your local water source from pollutants.
Participants can promise to do five, or more, things total from all the categories. Each option has extra information to help the person complete their promise. The basic message of all of these different activities is that we need to take a look at our planet and raise awareness for what we are doing and what we have already done.
I hope you take a moment today to think about your impact on Earth!
By: Ariana Williams
Established 1826 — Oldest College Newspaper West of the Alleghenies