Celebrate 50 years of Earth Day

Will you join in on 22nd April?

History of Earth Day

On 22nd April in 1970, millions of Americans (10% of the US population at that time) protested government ignorance and were taking to the streets to demand for a new way forward that put the planet first. It was the response to the environmental impact of oil spills and smog, amongst other issues.

Now 50 years on, the ‘theme’ for the day is climate action. Very fitting as the last year has brought this more and more into the sportlight with young campaigners voicing their concerns.

Modern Earth Day

With over 1 billion people taking part, 75,000 partners and acknowledged in over 190 countries, this is one of the biggest global movements.

And you can take part too!

This year, the Earth Day Network, along with U.S Department of State’s Eco-Capitals Forum, and The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars are launching a challenge from Wednesday 22nd April: Earth Challenge 2020

The idea is to create the most transparent and accessible citizen science database and the build of this included data collected from a crowd funding set up in 2017 with results from all 7 continents.

The results identified 6 research fields to focus on:

Plastics
Air quality
Insects
Climate
Food security
Water quality

To find out more ways you can take part this year, check out the offical Earth Day Take Action Now page here.

The power is in your hands

Due to the current circumstances of lockdown and the covid19 pandemic, Earth Hour is digital this year.

Also as a result of the current times, we can see life returning to the planet - now more than ever we should try to protect this once lockdown are lifted. We can’t return to life before the lockdown - it wasn’t sustainable and we were killing the planet we are living on. As a result, we were also harming ourselves. There are ways to live and work more harmoniously and we must prioritise this moving forward.

Governments and businesses across the world ahev to push change. But without YOU asking for it, they will likely revert back to old habbits because it is cheaper, easier and gives them more money. Together, we have the power to make change happen.

So will you join with me, and millions of others across the globe, and push for a better, cleaner and greener future?

What else can we do:

Set up or sign an existing petition with your local government to demand an environmental reset with businesses and policies
Talk to others about the future - spread the love of Earth Day
Commit to a change you can make and stick to it - whether that be replacing kitchen roll for reusable towels, changing your shower gel to plastic free soap, always taking a reusable cup out and about or commiting to reduce your plastic waste in a shop, it all adds up over yuor lifetime
Support your local shops and go free range for any meat
Use your money as your power and support businesses that are trying to do good for the planet

Good luck and lets work together to make Earth Day 2020 really mean something.

Simply Sustainable Ideas x