Earth Day 2014 – Green CitiesToday, the 22nd of April, is a day when over one billion people across
Earth Day 2014 – Green CitiesToday, the 22nd of April, is a day when over one billion people across 192 countries collectively take action to protect the environment and our home, Earth. This year, men, women and children from Dublin to Dubai, from New York to New Delhi, are bettering their communities and helping to upgrade them to be greener and more sustainable.With more than half the world’s population living in cities and with the realities of climate change becoming more prevalent, the need to create sustainable communities is more important than ever. Earth Day 2014 will seek to do just that through its global theme: Green Cities. With smart investments in sustainable technology, forward-thinking public policy, and an educated and active public, the aim is to encourage the global community to transform our cities and facilitate a sustainable future.The Earth Day network has been proactive in leading global projects from installing solar panels, increasing energy efficiency standards and promoting responsible waste management in schools, businesses and within the local community. From pioneering underwater turbine technology in Seattle to the installation of solar power for refugees in Burma, the Earth Day network has been the forefront of facilitating sustainable enterprise and development this year and for this we salute them.Earth Day began as a result of concerns US senator Gaylord Nelson developed in the wake of an oil spill in 1969 in Santa Barbara, California. A year later, in 1970, 20 million Americans took to the streets demanding a more sustainable environment and subsequently launching the modern environmentalism movement- my fellow TES admin and friend, Annie R, will give more details on this later.Today, Earth Day is the largest secular event in the world. It encourages the participation of people of all ages and backgrounds to come together in unity to clean up, better education, sign petitions, protest and rally to save endangered species.While Earth Day is an amazing event showing human cooperation, we must not forget that realistically, every day is Earth Day; this is our one home, which we all share and should cherish and respect. After all, “The earth does not belong to us. We belong to the earth.”-JeanAll images in this collage are courtesy of the Earth Day website, which you should check out here:http://www.earthday.org/greencities/ -- source link
#earth day#green#green cities#cities#climate change#science#activism