Where To Celebrate Earth Day’s 50th? Right At Home
The 50th anniversary of Earth Day lands on a Wednesday, so while we’re stuck at home, leverage the occasion to commit every Hump Day to trying new ways to consistently reduce your waste. Visit WasteLessWednesday.org for simple, sharable ideas like brewing your coffee with reusable instead of paper filters, and refusing condiments, disposable utensils, and paper napkins you don’t need in your takeout orders.
Published by the Austin American-Statesman April 21, 2020
One day before COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, The New York Times posted a March 10 story, “Where to Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day.”
The article highlighted “three big-ticket events perhaps worth traveling for”– the Food Is Life Festival in Napa, California, the Earth Optimism Summit in Washington, DC, and EarthX in Dallas.
Like SXSW and school classes, these events have either been cancelled, postponed, or gone digital. It’s painful to think of the related financial implications, and my heart goes out to the organizers, especially those with EarthX, which last year drew 170,000 participants to Dallas Fair Park.
Though I’ve enjoyed speaking at and attending Earth Day conferences, I can’t help but ask: Do we really need “big ticket” expos and the associated footprint and travel to celebrate the environment?
As flat-out awful and worrisome as this pandemic has been, COVID-19 is forcing the business world and Earth’s inhabitants to rethink the way we do things, and there will be silver linings. The crisis can yield breakthroughs on policies for improved health care coverage, paid sick leave, and telecommuting. Our new heroes are those who previously we may have taken for granted–doctors, nurses, grocery store employees, garbage collectors, truckers, mail carriers, and telecommunications and utility workers.
Job loss, shuttered businesses, and sheltering in place have caused Austin’s once congested byways to become eerily vacant. As terrible a mountain as we have to climb, let the empty streets serve as a reminder that transportation is responsible for a quarter of our greenhouse gas emissions. Let the potential for escalating home utility bills due to being confined to our homes remind us of the importance of conserving energy and water. Let the empty grocery shelves remind us never to waste food. Let our threatened economic future remind us wasting stuff wastes money.
Let the unfortunate cancellations of Earth Day festivals (and the unnecessary chachka giveaways) remind us we don’t need big expos to learn how to protect the environment on the daily. Conferences of all kinds are going digital, and maybe that’s a good thing because we sidestep the environmental footprint and make information more accessible. EarthX has partnered with the National Geographic Society to provide virtual forums now through April 27 via EarthX.org. The Earth Optimism event planned for DC is now digital, streaming information from high-profile speakers April 22-26 online at EarthOptimism.si.edu. I’ll be tuning in and you can too.
The 50th anniversary of Earth Day lands on a Wednesday, so while we’re stuck at home, leverage the occasion to commit every Hump Day to trying new ways to consistently reduce your waste. Visit WasteLessWednesday.org for simple, sharable ideas like brewing your coffee with reusable instead of paper filters, and refusing condiments, disposable utensils, and paper napkins you don’t need in your takeout orders.
You may have seen recent reports that due to COVID-19 concerns, some states are lifting plastic bag bans and not allowing shoppers to bring reusable bags into their stores. Here in Texas, HEB grocery still allows reusable bags in their stores, but not at curbside pickup. Let this be a reminder to all of us that we should wash our reusable bags regularly (preferably after every trip to the store), and that sometimes disposables are necessary in this world. Just remember to recycle them, including your single-use plastic bags.
Like with the Great Depression, coping with COVID-19 is teaching us to never waste anything. (Who else is counting their toilet paper squares lately, by the way?) Let the 50th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22 remind us conserving our natural resources is just good, common sense. And we can start at home. Because what choice do we have?
Valerie Salinas-Davis is a sustainability consultant and writer living in Austin, Texas. She is the author of the upcoming book, “Green-ish: How To Protect the Environment Without Hugging A Tree.”