How to Celebrate Earth Day on April 22 and Everyday
Happy Earth Day 2021! We’re celebrating with an Earth Day Bash and lots of ideas for making your once-a-year commitments stronger than ever before.
It’s the year 2021 and Earth Day is celebrating its 51st birthday. We’ve learned a few things over the past half century. Delayed action and wishful thinking don’t solve our environmental crises. Fortunately, the momentum of change is on the rise.
Just a quick recap to remind you what’s at stake:
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We have less than 9 years to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 45% on the path to 100% by 2050 to prevent 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming
- The earth’s atmosphere reached 421 parts per million of carbon dioxide this year--the highest level in all of human history
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1 million species are at risk of extinction (that’s 1 in 8 on the planet)
- By 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish
Obviously, the level of action you take makes a difference. That’s why we’re listing actions with different levels of impact: a single action, lifestyle change, and lifelong or community change.
Whatever you do, try to make a greater impact by making a commitment for a longer period of time and getting others involved.
Tree planting
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Plant a tree
- Plant a tree and take care of it
- Plant a forest and take care of it
When you plant a tree, there are a few things you need to think about. Trees planted in urban areas have a greater overall impact than places that are already abundant with trees. Not only will you improve people’s mental health in that space, you’ll reduce the heat-trapping property of concrete and other harmful building materials.
The other thing to think about is the species of tree you plant. It should be suited to the local ecology, otherwise it can consume too much water, or disrupt other local species.
Composting
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Compost at home
- Compost in the neighborhood
- Advocate for municipal composting if unavailable in your area
Food waste is a huge problem, because rotting food creates greenhouse gas emissions. Composting is just one part of the solution.
The other issue is making sure that you don’t create excess food waste to begin with by buying the right amounts of food.
When you make your changes collective at the neighborhood or city level, they create systems that allow others to join in more easily and have a greater impact.
Old-fashioned transportation
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Use people or animal-powered transport (walking, roller skates, bike, horse, etc.)
- Use people or animal-powered transport once a day.
- Campaign for your local city to make infrastructure changes that make gas-free mobility easy, safe and affordable for everyone.
We’ve all heard that EVs are replacing gas-fueled cars in the future. And this is great, but it’s not the only issue at stake.
Currently there isn’t enough electricity being produced to power all of those EVs, especially not from renewable energy sources. If we really want to cut back, we need to embrace the whole spectrum of gas-free mobility options.
Plant-based food
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Eat vegan for a day.
- Eat vegan once a week.
- Become a vegan for life and serve your food to others.
What’s the deal with meatless Mondays? First, meat production is responsible for 14.5% of the global greenhouse gas emissions and it contributes to deforestation in biodiverse places like the Amazon rainforest.
As a food source, meat is far more resource intensive than planted crops. Meat production uses loads of food, water, and energy to produce. At the same time, factory farming overloads the environment with phosphorus and nitrate from animal waste, not to mention the pesticides used to grow the agricultural crops used to produce the animal feed.
This creates those nasty patches of toxic algae you’ve heard about on the news. Go even further with better food choices by buying local and organic food from small farms, because it helps soil health and biodiversity.
Reduce consumption
Wear used clothing, buy less, and share your stuff for the
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day,
- month, or
- year, and beyond.
Conventional sustainable clothing brands are great in theory, but they still use up natural resources (water and energy) to produce new clothing. When you buy from used clothing outlets or sources (like Goodfair), you’ll cut down on the environmental footprint of manufacturing and keep wearable clothing out of the waste stream.
Want to spend Earth Day with other Goodfairians online?
Save the date for our Earth Day Bash-- livestreamed on TikTok and Youtube. We’ll be celebrating from 1pm to 7pm with guest speakers, giveaways, magic, and live music--plus lots of surprises.