Today is Earth Day

How to Celebrate and Participate:

• Reduce/Reuse/Recycle:  Use sustainable, reusable products and cut down on disposable plastic use.
• Participate in Cleanups:  Join local efforts to pick up plastic waste in communities.
• Conservation:  Plant trees, conserve water, and use energy-efficient appliances.
• Education:  Attend local environmental "teach-ins" and learn about local eco-systems.
• Use Public Transportation:  In some areas, public transportation may be free on Earth Day to promote lower emissions.

Earth Day occurs on the same day every year.

This year, April 22 happens to be on a Wednesday.

Today is Earth Day

Earth Day is a global event dedicated to environmental protection, celebrated annually on April 22.  Why?  Because the first Earth Day was April 22, 1970, when millions of Americans mobilized to advocate for environmental reform.  This movement led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the enactment of significant environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.  Learn more HERE.

Today is Earth Day

Each year on April 22, more than a billion people celebrate Earth Day to protect the planet from things like pollution and deforestation.  Here are some specific things you can do:

• Look for ways to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle our natural resources in order to send less waste to landfills.
• Get involved in environmental work in your local community by cleaning up parks and other efforts to make communities greener.
• Plant trees.
• Buy reusable bags that you can use over and over.
• Conserve energy at home by turning off lights and electronics when they are not in use.
• Reduce paper waste by thinking twice before printing things, whether you're at home or at work.
• Walk, ride a bike, carpool, or take public transportation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (and get more exercise).
• Pick up litter.
• Turn off the tap while you brush your teeth or wash dishes.
• Buy local to reduce shipping distances for food.  (Doing that also supports local providers).

Today is Earth Day

My daughter called this last one "Earth Day in action."

Earth Day ~ April 22

I took part in the first Earth Day in 1970 on my college campus.  I came home with information and handouts that day, including one that said "Stop at Two," meaning two children to replace the two parents so we don't overpopulate our earth.  My 6-year-old son nodded and said, "That's a good idea" (or something like that).  I said to him, "David . . . think about it."  I have been pregnant twice, but my first "baby" turned out to be identical twins.  David was born three years later, making him number three.  His eyes widened as realization hit him.

I've celebrated Earth Day on April 22nd every year since then, but I never use the "Stop at Two" slogan.  Never.  David may have taken the advice seriously, though.  He and his wife have two children, a boy and a girl.  Each of his sisters also had two, a girl and a boy.  One twin later remarried and had one other daughter, but that is still only one child per parent.  That youngest grandchild happened to be born on — wait for it! — April 22nd.  Happy birthday today!  What a great coincidence, huh?

Our world is in worse shape now than it was a half century ago when Earth Day was first celebrated.  We need to do more to care for Mother Earth.  I recycle cans and bottles and paper, and I try to avoid anything that may pollute our environment.  What are you doing to save the only planet we have?  Here are a few ways to make a difference.

Click on this image to enlarge it.

Earth Day ~ 50th anniversary

April 22nd has been Earth Day for 50 years now.  I celebrated the first one on the campus of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 1970, coming home with a couple of buttons after the event.  Wikipedia says:

Earth Day is an annual event celebrated around the world on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First celebrated in 1970, it now includes events coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network in more than 193 countries.

Google has an interesting doodle today about bees and, if you click on it, the little bee moves through the trees and flowers, pollinating them.  Be sure to read about the development of the doodle.  That's where I found this little bee dance to share.

In an article headed by the Earth Day 2020 illustrationn above, the Philidelphia Inquirer suggests How to celebrate Earth Day’s 50th anniversary while following stay-at-home orders.  To see what I've posted here about Earth Day over the years, click on the label below or this link.

Earth Day 2018

Earth Day is April 22nd every year.  I'm concerned that we are killing our planet, the only place we have to live.  Our trash, especially the plastic filling our oceans, will kill us by ruining our water.  Our pollutants spewed into the air will kill us by ruining the very air we breathe.  I took part in the first celebration of Earth Day 1970, which I wrote about on another of my blogs in 2007.  This Pogo cartoon is from 1971, a year later, and our trash problem has only gotten worse.

My goal today is to pick up trash that has blown into an area that collects water running off a nearby parking lot.  I can see it from my sixth floor window and have suggested a trash pick-up as one of our volunteer opportunities for residents here at the Crown Center.

Her birthday is Earth Day

Cady, who reviewed books on this blog a few years ago, is "sweet sixteen" today.  Some of the books she reviewed were And Tango Makes Three, Kersplatypus, Goldie, and Other Goose.

Happy Birthday, Cady!

Earth Day ~ 2014

My youngest grandchild was born on Earth Day in 2000, so she is 14 years old today.  I want the earth to be a healthy, safe place for her and her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  We need to take care of the world we live in — there's no alternative for us.  "Your work," said the Buddha, "is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it."

Have we tampered with it and treated it as an object?  Yes, but is it too late to make it right?  I certainly hope not.  Buddha and Lao Tzu in his Tao Te Ching were concerned about our world.  So were Native Americans.

I don't have anything special planned to celebrate Earth Day this year.  Maybe I'll hug a tree.  How will you spend Earth Day this year?  How can we help save our earth?

Google is interactive ~ for Earth Day

Google Doodle is interactive today, for Earth Day.  My friend Kathy wrote on Facebook:  "If you haven't done it already, check out the Google home page. Their logo today is dedicated to Earth Day, and it's interactive. You can make flowers grow, make bears come out of the caves, and make the sun and moon rise and set."

Sunday Salon ~ more books?

READATHON

I've been taking part in Dewey's 24-hour Readathon, which started (for me) at 8:00 a.m. yesterday.  I ran out of steam and slept the last two hours this morning, as well as about an hour and a half in the middle when I dozed off.  I read one book and, if I hadn't spent so much time playing with the mini-challenges, I'd have finished it.  (I'm near the end, so I'll read the rest this morning before I sleep.)

BOOK SALE

It's not my fault the closest used book store is going out of business.  Though my goal is to clear my shelves by giving away books, I've been bringing some home, as well.  I bought some last week at 50% off, and again this week at 70% off — and the prices were already low, low, low used-book prices.  Okay, I'll brag a little and say I have given away more than I've replaced.  That ought to count for something.  Now to show you the bookstore booty, seven books for less than eight dollars.

The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship ~ by Jeffrey Zaslow, 2009

This book is a tribute to female friendships, the story of eleven girls and the ten women they became.  As children, they formed a special bond, growing up in the small town of Ames, Iowa.  As young women, they moved to eight different states, yet managed to maintain an extraordinary friendship that would carry them through college and careers, marriage and motherhood, dating and divorce, the death of a child, and the mysterious death of the eleventh member of their group.  The girls, now in their forties, have a lifetime of memories in common, some evocative of their generation and some that will resonate with any woman who has ever had a friend.  Close female relationships can shape every aspect of women's lives — their sense of themselves, their choice of men, their need for validation, their relationships with their mothers, their dreams for their daughters — and reveals how such friendships thrive, rewarding those who have committed to them.

After I brought these books home, I picked up the book I'd been reading (The Age of Grief by Jane Smiley) and noticed that the author "teaches at Iowa State University and lives in Ames, Iowa." I hadn't noticed "Ames" until then.  An interesting coincidence.

The Mother-Daughter Book Club ~ by Shireen Dodson, 1997

This is the story of a group of mothers and their daughters, and how their relationships were strengthened and changed by starting a monthly reading club.  But it is also a practical step-by-step guide — filled with stories, anecdotes, and reading lists — that will inspire parents to start reading clubs of their own.  It's about mothers and daughters, girls and women, and how reading and talking enriches our relationships with one another.

America's Women: Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines ~ by Gail Collins, 2003, history

Gail Collins shows how women lived, what they cared about, and how they felt about marriage, sex, and work.  She begins with the lost colony of Roanoke and the early southern "tobacco brides" who came looking for a husband and sometimes — thanks to the stupendously high mortality rate — wound up marrying their way through three or four.  Spanning wars, the pioneering days, the fight for suffrage, the Depression, the era of Rosie the Riveter, the civil rights movement, and the feminist rebellion of the 1970s, Collins describes the way women's lives were altered by dress fashions, medical advances, rules of hygiene, social theories about sex and courtship, and the ever-changing attitudes toward education, work, and politics.  While keeping her eye on the big picture, Collins still notes that corsets and uncomfortable shoes mattered a lot, too.

The Book of Beginnings: The Story of Genesis and Job ~ by Steve Stephens, 1998, fiction

This artistic interpretation of the Book of Genesis follows the stories of Man, Woman, the Walker, the Land Baron, the Merchant, the Princess, the Schemer, the Dreamer, and other familiar biblical characters recast in simple, yet elegant, storybook prose.  Similar to Walter Wangerin's bestselling The Book of God, this book breathes new life into familiar Bible stories and characters.

Beyond Our Selves ~ by Catherine Marshall, 1961, religion

I read this book in the early 1960s, shortly after it was first published.  Now I want to see if it's still as meaningful to me now as it was then.  This week, I ran across this quote online:  "While Catherine Marshall is not on record as a universalist, she strongly hints at the idea in her book Beyond Our Selves in which she quotes Hannah Whitall Smith."  I'll look for any indications as I read the book again.

The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith ~ by Marcus J. Borg, 2003, religion

Here's another one I've already read, taught from repeatedly, and written about many times on this blog.  I want to give it to someone (who may read this and wonder if it's for her), and it was so very, very inexpensive — as well as clean and unmarked — that I really had to buy it.  You understand, don't you?  And besides, when I give it away, I'll be "cleaning off my shelves" as I intended to do this spring.  (Can you see my wicked grin?)

The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant ~ by John Dominic Crossan, 1991, history

This book reveals the true Jesus — who he was, what he did, what he said.  It opens with "The Gospel of Jesus," Crossan's studied determination of Jesus' actual words and actions stripped of any subsequent additions and placed in a capsule account of his life story.  The Jesus who emerges is a savvy and courageous Jewish Mediterranean peasant, a radical social revolutionary, with a rhapsodic vision of economic, political, and religious egalitarianism and a social program for creating it.

EARTH DAY

I took part in the very first Earth Day in 1970, my youngest grandchild was born on Earth Day in 2000 (happy birthday, Cady!), and I really like this famous Earth Day poster from 1971.

Visit the Sunday Salon's Facebook page for links to more posts.

Earth Day 2011

When I think about Earth Day, I think of trees.  So today I want to share a few tree quotes that I like.

"If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer.  But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen."

— Henry David Thoreau

"The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago — the next best time is now."

— Chinese Proverb

"The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in their way."

— William Blake

Coolidge Park in Chattanooga

"Trees are your best antiques." — Alexander Smith

"Happiness is sharing a bowl of cherries and a book of poetry with a shade tree. He doesn't eat much and doesn't read much, but listens well and is a most gracious host."

— Astrid Alauda

"Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them."

— Bill Vaughn

To read my review of Dr. Seuss's The Lorax, click here.
To read about a bookish tree, click here.
To read some of my previous Earth day posts, click here.

Hug a tree ~ or plant one

I took part in the first Earth Day, back in April 1970. Wow, that's forty years ago! A few years ago I wrote about what happened that day, when I was a university student and went home to three young children. Read that post on my Greening the Blue Planet blog.

Have you ever actually hugged a tree?  I have had a favorite tree in every place I've ever lived, but hugging hasn't been part of my routine.  One day, however, I ran out through a drizzly rain to get my mail and stood inside my garage reading a letter from a friend who had recently moved away.  In her letter she asked me to hug the big tree in my yard that was her favorite tree -- and I ran through the drizzle and wrapped my arms around that tree.  Her letter said she knew I would do it, and she was right.  That would have been 1973, I believe.

On Earth Day in 2000 my seventh grandchild was born.  I wrote about Cady's birthday party a few years later.  That was a day I spent mostly at the zoo, before attending her party.

Earth Day has usually been a very good day for me, though I don't have anything special planned to celebrate.  Maybe I'll hug a tree.  How will you spend the day this year?