Earth Day!

Today, April 22nd, is Earth Day, and according to Wikipedia, it’s a day “designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s environment.” There is also a UN Earth Day in March, but the more days the merrier, no? Today’s Earth Day has been observed since the early 70s, and has had a boatload of different emphases: overpopulation and “zero population growth,” global cooling, global warming, recycling, clean energy, wilderness conservation (“Who speaks for the trees?”) and much more. There are Earth Day and Earth Week events going on all over the globe, but sadly… I can’t find much going on in Romania. Earth Day Network has a small page lamenting the problems facing the country, and I’ve found a few other sites that talk about the same problems. Things are best summed up (I think) on a branch of earthdaybags.com, on a page that displays some artwork from an elementary school in Mioveni, Arges, a town in central Romania:

In Romania the battle against garbage it's only at the beginning, but like always the beginning is the most part hard part. A polluted environment walks hand in hand with humanity's thirst for a prosperous life. Basically the concept of pollution has become an everyday issue due to people's lack of consideration for nature, sheer ignorance, mass absence of knowledge for nature's pitiful existence, the need to defy every moral law that we hold dear, just for short term amusement, not to mention the materialistic selfish and petty schemes of the great industrialists.


artwork that accompanied the above blurb about Romania and the environment...

It doesn’t paint a pretty picture of Romania, or the habits of Romanian people, but I have to agree. Almost every day I see people littering, tossing garbage out of the car window and/or while walking down the street; there’s an attitude that there are people – the lowly garbage sweepers – to clean up after others, and this somehow exempts the garbage tossers of any responsibility or culpability. I hate it. But the issues are obviously much bigger. The government provides no example, opportunity or incentive to care about the environment, and in a country struggling to catch up with modernity and European living standards, the Environment and the Earth fall at the bottom of the list of its worries.

Anyways, Wikihow has a page with 15 suggestions on how to celebrate Earth Day, and here they are:

1. Plant trees. Strike one: I can’t plant any trees today.
2. Make nature crafts at school or at home. Hmm… I suppose I could make some nature crafts, but I would (or Steve will) throw them out – strike two.
3. Learn more about the environment. I can definitely do this.
4. Reduce, reuse and recycle all day long. Done.
5. Get children to recycle their old toys and games. Strike three.
6. Rid litter. I can definitely do that… there is litter everywhere.
7. Sing or listen to Earth songs. Can do this too – I just discovered the great playlists in iTunes Essentials…. there’s even an Earth playlist – will have to check it out.
8. Hold an Earth Day fair. Nope.
9. Teach others about the environment. Maybe.
10. Wear green and/or brown. How about blue?
11. Engage others in conversation about your environmental concerns. Sure!
12. Cook a special Earth Day meal. Club sandwiches?
13. Consider buying a carbon offset to make up for the greenhouse gas emissions you create on the other 364 days of the year. I will consider it, but most likely not act on those considerations.
14. Ride your bike. I would love to ride my bike! But I don’t have one.
15. Remember, every day is Earth Day! Okay!

The last thing that I have to say that has nothing to do with Earth Day is that I’m leaving in a week! Yay!!