Earth Day 2023
It's that time of year again! Earth Day will soon be upon us.
What is Earth Day?
Earth Day is an annual event celebrated on April 22, which aims to raise awareness and promote action towards environmental protection and sustainability.
As a modern environmental movement, Earth Day has become a global event with millions of people participating in activities such as tree planting, beach cleanups, and recycling drives. It is a day to reflect on the impact of our actions on the planet and to consider ways we can reduce our environmental footprint and protect the Earth's natural resources for future generations.
How and when did Earth Day start?
The first official Earth Day began in 1970 and was commissioned and orchestrated by United States Senator Gaylord Nelson, who was concerned about the environmental degradation caused by industrialisation and pollution. Nelson worked with a team of environmental activists led by Denis Hayes, who was leading a grassroots environmental organisation at the time.
Since then, Earth Day has inspired a huge number of people to join the environmental protection movement. Young activist groups are gathering in college campuses across the world, teachers are having meaningful discussions with their students and inspiring the next generation, and altogether the attitude towards environmentalism is changing.
Who was Senator Nelson?
Senator Gaylord Nelson was an American politician and environmental advocate, active between 1963-1981. As well as his work on legislation to create hiking trails along the Appalachian mountains and other environmental legislation, his approach to environmental issues, global warming and the climate crisis is widely considered to be a significant factor towards creating the modern environmental movement, and a new wave of environmental activism.
The Earth Day Network
Since its inception in 1970, the concept of "Earth Day" has grown exponentially. What started off as a national American event, eventually grew into an international organisation that operates in 190 countries, and is responsible for the education and activism of many across the globe.
Earth Day's Effect On Legislation
Due to Earth Day's influence on popular culture, itself as a movement has had a huge effect on public awareness and resulted in the ability to change human behaviour. This has led to real-world benefits like changing or creating new environmental laws, where petitions to world leaders and other elected officials, as well as other Earth Day events, have resulted in new legislation as well as the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Legislation influenced by the Earth Day movement includes the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered species act, and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act.
Earth Day and The Canopy Project
The Canopy Project is an initiative launched by the Earth Day Network, which aims to address deforestation and promote reforestation efforts around the world. The project focuses on planting trees in areas that have been deforested or are at risk of deforestation, with the goal of restoring ecosystems and habitats, improving soil health, and sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Planting trees is an effective way of protecting the environment, but it is not a silver bullet solution to all environmental problems. Trees play an important role in mitigating climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but they are just one part of a comprehensive approach to addressing climate change and protecting the environment.
Since the project went live in 2010 The Canopy Project has been responsible for planting hundreds of millions of trees globally. Over 500 million trees have been planted in projects in Europe, North and South America, Asia, Africa, and Australia.
As well as combating air pollution and the climate crisis, the Earth Day Canopy Project aims to improve living conditions for those who are impacted most by deforestation by creating healthier ecosystems, encouraging local flora and endangered species back into their native habitats, and supporting farmers and agriculture industries, which often prop-up local communities, by providing them with cash crops such as vanilla and clove, stimulating the local economy whilst contributing to carbon sequestration and reducing the need for illegal logging operations creating a small scale green economy.
How do you celebrate earth day?
People celebrate earth day in a number of ways starting in the week leading up to Earth Day (AKA Earth Week). The theme of Earth Day 2023 is "Invest In Our Planet" - the first time in history that a theme has been kept from a previous year.
Investing in planet Earth doesn't just mean investing money into environmental protection efforts like renewable energy sources or air and water pollution filtering systems, but also investing your time. Yes, of course, it would be wonderful if you installed solar panels and wind turbines on your home, or build a nuclear reactor in your back garden, but for the vast majority of us that's unrealistic, and some might argue that the last one is unrealistic for almost everyone, but hey if you can manage it go for it.
If that statement applies to you, The Earth Day Network is encouraging you to do a few different things:
Push for climate literacy
Addressed to COP28, the Earth Day 2023 open letter calls on participants to:
- Establish climate education as one of the focal points of negotiations
- Encourage member states to sign the Glasgow Declaration for Climate Education
- Urge the Heads of State attending the World Leaders' Summit at COP28 to commit to assessing and fully integrating K-12 climate education into the national curricula with an emphasis on building civic skills, fostering entrepreneurship and creating jobs, and pledge to allocate funds for this purpose
- Organise a High Level Ministerial Session to highlight the significance of climate education
- Include a thematic day dedicated to Climate Education at COP28
By focusing on public awareness, education for environmental science, and climate literacy, the hope is that a more educated population will be able to a, develop new technologies to help combat existing environmental concerns, and b, become more widely aware of the impacts of their actions so that people can make smarter choices.
If you're an educator or would like to help educate your family and friends, you can access the official Earth Day environmental teach in kit here.
You can sign the Earth Day open letter here.
Plant trees
To help combat global warming, industrial pollution, and to promote environmental conservation and sustainable development, the Earth Day Network is asking for all who can to plant trees - be it in person or through The Canopy Project, Earth Day Network's project that allows individuals to donate to tree planting and reforestation projects.
You can donate to the Earth Day Network's Canopy Project here.
Support sustainable fashion
Cheap production and fast-moving fashion trends have made unethical and unsustainable fashion production methods much more easily accessible than the more environmentally sound alternatives, leading to a rise in environmental destruction and plastic pollution, as well as an increased threat to human health.
With approximately 60% of clothing being made from Polyester, our demand for easily replaceable and up-to-date clothing has quickly become a cause for environmental concerns, the Earth Day Network is calling on individuals to sign their petition to Biden's administration to:
- Ban the production of virgin synthetic materials
- Hold the fashion industry responsible for cutting carbon emissions to align with the 1.5 degree pathway limiting global warming, as set out by the 2015 Paris Agreement
- Require the fashion industry to dispose of waste materials and used clothing responsibly
- Require labelling of garments for transparency and traceability
- Impose a new carbon tax on all clothing made from synthetic materials
- Mandating that every new washing machine is fit with a filter to catch plastic microfibers and ensure they don't reach the water supply
- Restrict the manufacture, import, and export of clothing containing chemicals/substances
- Eliminate unfair practices for apparel workers
- Banning the importation of clothing made with indentured servitude or child labour
- Educating consumers on how to effectively recycle used clothing
Incidentally, you can check out our sister company Know The Origin for a collection of sustainable fashion brands, as well as homeware, health and beauty products, and gifts here.
Help end plastic pollution
I doubt I need to explain to you how big an issue plastic pollution is around the world, but did you know that around 70% of the world's oxygen is produced by phytoplankton in the world's oceans? With at least 14 million tons of plastic being dumped into our oceans and waterways every year, our consumer habits are becoming visibly damaging to the environment.
Earth Day 2023 is calling on you to sign their petition to:
- Negotiate a new legally binding global instrument on plastic pollution, including measures along the entire life cycle of plastic
- Promote a circular economy action plan and ban single-use plastic
- Establish National Action Plans to prevent litter/plastics from entering our rivers and oceans
- Enhance investment planning and stimulate innovation to prevent plastic from entering any ecosystem
You can sign up for this petition here.
The Great Global Cleanup Map
The Great Global Cleanup Map is an interactive map that indicates cleanup events across the world. You can view public or private cleanups, as well as find information and resources on how to join or host your own.
You can find the map here.
Support The Earth Bill
If you're in the US, firstly hi, how's it going, secondly you're being asked to write to Congress in order to encourage them to take more drastic action in order to realign with the Paris Agreement, which you can do so here.
If however, you're anywhere else, you can still take this bit to heart by writing to your local politicians and government in order to find out what they're doing in order to support the environment.
Why is Earth Day important to us?
If it's not pretty clear by now how we feel about Earth Day, let me put it like this.
The first official earth day was a huge turning point for environmentalists across the globe. No longer was environmentalism for hippies and outcasts, but for the mainstream Populus. It was a landmark occasion that proved that people care, and that organisations and governments needs to take environmental issues seriously. What started in the US has spread into global earth day celebrations, a single day where we celebrate an incredible, natural world. It's precisely with movements like this that spark a billion acts of environmental justice that leave the world a better place.
To see that we put our money where our mouth is, you can take a look at our sustainability below...