Earth Day is a celebration of our environment that seeks to foster awareness of our natural resources and how important they are to everyday life. The first international Earth Day was held on April 20, 1970 - the outgrowth of a student-led campus movement. Earth Day was soon embraced as a worldwide celebration of natural resources that eventually led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as well as passage of the Clean Water, Clean Air and Endangered Species acts. It is the only event celebrated simultaneously around the globe by people of all backgrounds, faiths and nationalities.

Today we celebrate Earth Day on April 22^nd with governments, schools, businesses, churches, various groups and individuals all observing its significance for today and its message for tomorrow.

Rick and I celebrated by purchasing 2 containers for collecting our newspapers and glass. We found a recycle bin and contributed to it. We also planted new perinneals in our backyard.

Care to share what you did?

Here are some links for Earth Day

USINFO.STATE.GOV is a site produced and maintained by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Information Programs. It gives information about American life and culture and current U.S. foreign policy. This is a good site to read of the history of Earth Day.

EarthDayNetwork.net has many topics of interest including Earth Day events happening around the world.

What Will You Do for Earth Day 08? Google gives you the opportunity to share what you will or have done for Earth Day 08 and the future. Get on the map!

Kaboose is a site for parents and their children that gives content and applications to help parents plan and share their family life. See their holiday page full of various ideas for fun and learning.

Reuters has news on Earth Day activities in Washington.

Hope your Earth Day was productive!

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I ran across an article on Digg titled “Buy A Tree and Watch it Grow Thanks to Google Earth”. This tweaked my interest so I followed the link. Basically the idea is to donate $5.50 per tree to have one planted in your name in Borneo. This is to help the re-growth needed in that part of our world. The donation buys a tree, all the care and feeding needed, and the exact coordinates of the location of your tree can be seen on google earth. I tried it out and found it quite fascinating. I tend to be cautious when giving money to something I have no control over so I scrolled down to the comments at the bottom of the article and sure enough, some of the responses weren’t real positive. One commentor felt we should plant trees closer to home, another thought it lazy of a person not to plant a tree yourself and others were just skeptical. I decided the article would of been much more effective had it given the reasons for the needed trees. So in order to calm my own suspicions, I went on a search and here is what I found.

First a little history…

An undisturbed natural rain forest has little effect on the atmospheric CO2 levels, but once disturbed (deforestation) CO2 is released into the atmosphere causing world wide changes. Read the complete Post.

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Corn ethanol may become a major energy player in the future, but it will take great deal of water to keep it going.

read more | digg story

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With 620 million cars worldwide and fossil fuels running out, are biofuels the green solution to our energy needs?

read more | digg story

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