Earth Day - let's celebrate and take care of our only home

The earth provides us with everything - soil for food, water to drink and air to breathe. It's our only home. We must take care of it.

By Noemi Karacsony, Gaia team teacher at CICD
From Earthday.org

22nd of April we celebrate Earth day!!
This year, the headline is Restore our Earth.

World Earth day is realised every year on 22nd of April to create awareness about pollution and to celebrate the Blue Planet - or our Mother Earth.
The first earth day was in 1970 and gave a voice to an emerging public consciousness about the state of our planet — in the decades leading up to the first Earth Day, Americans were consuming vast amounts of leaded gas through massive and inefficient automobiles. Industry discharge smoke and sludge. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of well-being. Until this point, mainstream America remained largely blind to environmental concerns and how a polluted environment threatens human health.
In 1970 Earth Day would come to provide a voice to this emerging environmental consciousness, groups that had been fighting individually against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, etc. united on Earth Day around these shared common values. Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, metropolitans and farmers, business and labour leaders. By the end of 1970, the first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

In 1990, Earth Day went global, mobilising 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting environmental issues onto the world stage. Earth Day 1990 gave a huge boost to recycling efforts worldwide and helped pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro – (The Earth |Summit was created as a response for member states to cooperate together internationally on development issues after the Cold War. Due to issues relating to sustainability being too big for individual member states to handle, Earth Summit was held as a platform for other member states to collaborate)
Today, Earth Day is widely recognized as the largest civil acknowledgement in the world, marked by more than a billion people every year as a day of action to change human behaviour and create global, national and local policy changes. The fight for a clean environment continues with increasing urgency, as the ravages of climate change become more and more apparent every day. 

Each of us has the power to help to make the world a better place

But what can you do? Maybe you don't have possibility to become an activist - there are still many things you can do. Let me give you some ideas:
- Reduce electricity use. You can’t afford to have your own power plants, its ok instead you can reduce electricity consumption by turning off the lights when you leave a room, unplugging appliances that aren’t in use, and turning off outlets when you’re done with them
- Limit how much air conditioning you are using.
You can limit how much you use an air conditioner unit or replace it with a fan to prevent heat-trapping hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) from entering the atmosphere. 

- Hang dry laundry instead of using a dryer.
Washing and drying your clothes in machines, while convenient, uses a significant amount of energy, which leads to greenhouse gas emissions. You can minimize your laundry-based carbon footprint by opting to hang drying your clothes when possible.
- Come up with creative ways to reduce food waste.
Shop smart! You can try out food waste recipes, make sure to eat your leftovers, freeze vegetable scraps to make a soup stock and many more…
- Reduce your plastic footprint.
From buying a reusable water bottle to carrying a reusable bag with you at the grocery store, there are countless ways to reduce your plastic footprint.
- Drive less.
Instead of driving use alternative modes of transportation including biking, ride shares, or public transportation

Many small steps - but they can help to Restore Our Earth!!!