Happy 55th anniversary of the first official Earth Day! And with Spring just around the corner, it’s almost Trillium season.
We are excited to share that we have invited city council on a Field Trip to HNA at the beginning of May! Getting them out into the heart of Nature for a fresh perspective on life and the importance of conserving our natural ecosystems. The tour will be co-lead by co-founder of the HNA, Frank Glew.
If you haven’t done so already, we encourage you to write to your councillors about your opposition to the development around the HNA, particularly on 1700 Strasburg Road. You will find their email addresses and a pre-written email script here.
Finally, an Earth Day message:
”The basic narrative we have around climate change is it's self part of the problem.
We have put far too much emphasis on fossil fuels and emissions and not nearly enough emphasis on ecosystems, biodiversity water, soil, forests, wetlands and so forth.
The reason we need to put more emphasis on that is that this planet is ALIVE! A living being.
Not a machine.
And that through what we call "development", we are destroying the organs and the tissues of this living being.
That is what the forests are, that's what the coral reefs are, that's what the wetlands are....
We degrade those, and then the body of this being becomes less capable of dealing with challenges.
Even if we cut emissions to zero overnight, if we continue to degrade the biosphere, the planet will still die a death of a million cuts.”
It's been 55 years, yet we still struggle to be motivated on this issue of conservation. Why?
Earth Day has been recognized in the United States on April 22 since 1970. The day spurred action in Washington, D.C., to create the Environmental Protection Agency and enact laws aimed at protecting the environment.
Gaylord Nelson, the late U.S. senator and governor of Wisconsin, is considered the founder of Earth Day.
Nelson established himself as a conservation leader in Wisconsin, where he served as governor between 1959 and 1963. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1962 and served three terms.
"The environment was an issue he cared quite deeply about, and he took that passion and concern with him to Washington and found few of his colleagues were interested," Tia Nelson, Gaylord Nelson's daughter and an environmental activist and policy adviser, told CBS News. Her father struggled for years to find a way to motivate the country on the issue of conservation, Tia Nelson said.
Gaylord Nelson acknowledged that his goal — "an environment of decency, quality and mutual respectfor all human beings and all other living creatures" — would "require a long sustained political, mural, ethical and financial commitment."
"He asked the question, Are we able? Yes. Are we willing? That's the unanswered question," Tia Nelson said. "The question remains unanswered, and that's hard, 55 years in, for people like myself who have dedicated their lives to environmental protection."
"Municipalities are probably the biggest factors on climate change right now," Robbins told CBS News
Let's make every day Earth day 🌱
Mother Earth is mother to us all... Rooted, finned, feathered, biped, quadruped, no legs.... We are all her children.
#MotherEarthMatters!