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Earth Day 2020

Ways to celebrate
Posted at 1:32 PM, Apr 22, 2020
and last updated 2020-04-22 14:51:14-04

Happy Earth Day! Today is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, which was first celebrated in 1970. It was Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin who came up with Earth Day and said, “The objective was to get a nationwide demonstration of concern for the environment so large that it would shake the political establishment out of its lethargy, and, finally, force this issue permanently onto the national political agenda.” Do you think it’s made a difference?

Of course, celebrating Earth Day is a little bit different this year, since we’re not gathering in large groups, not marching, and spending most of our time at home. Don’t worry, there are still many ways to celebrate!

You can visit Earth Day’s website for a whole bunch of activities, live-stream talks, and calls to action. You’ll also find more information there about Earth Day in general.

This link will take you to a CBS article about more ways to digitally celebrate Earth Day including all kinds of awesome virtual events from the National Park Service and The American Museum of Natural History to just name a few.

I wanted to take a moment to just chat about global climate change, too. Earth Day is the perfect day to remind us we need to do our best to take care of our earth. It’s the only one we have! In fact, the average temperature in Omaha has warmed by 2.2°F since the first Earth Day*. As temperatures continue to warm globally, we’re seeing more and more of the effects. Climate change is real and we all need to work together to make changes for the better. Anything you and your family can do to reduce your carbon footprint and reduce waste is great, but we’ll need our leaders to get on board to help make new laws and regulations to help curb our dependence on fossil fuels among other changes.

I often hear many myths about climate change and if you talk to your friends and family members about climate change, you’ve probably heard them, too. Or maybe you’re just now looking for more information and find yourself wondering about some of the facts! Here’s a website to provide the science behind de-mystifying most of those myths. If you’ve got any questions about climate change or want to have a respectful conversation about it with me, feel free to reach out to me on Twitter, Facebook, or email me at audra.moore@3newsnow.com.

Some of the info in this blog post came from these sites:
*Omaha Warming image: https://medialibrary.climatecentral.org/resources/earth-day-turns-50
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-first-earth-day