Today the 22nd of April is both Earth Day and International Mother Earth Day.
2010 will mark the 40th Earth Day celebration. Earth Day began in 1969, led by Senator Gaylord Nelson who wished to highlight the environmental issues of those days. Earth day started as a social grassroot movement and has throughout the past 40 years spread around the globe, expressing itself through campaigns, expositions, conferences and many other means of raising awarenes about the state of our planet.
The International Mother Earth Day is the result of a proposition presented by the Bolivian government in 2009. The United Nations General Assembly declared last year that the 22nd of April will now be the International Mother Earth Day. The International Mother Earth Day is not the same as the Earth day described above, nor is it a replacement. This shows how social activism can reach a status of global consensus all the way from grassroot levels to global political institutions. This acknowlegdement by the UN should therefore best be seen as a reinforcement of the orginal Earth Day.
There are events across the whole planet that mark this day. Earth Day activites are unfortunately not very widespread in Norway. Even if we are not participating in anu Earth Day events, we can still reflect upon the choices we make in our everyday lives and perhaps make our own action plan - not just for today, but for the next year, or an even longer time. This can be done by changing some or several of our current habits that have a detrimental effect on our planet's "health". There are many areas of which to focus on such as: climate change; conservation and biodiversity; deforestation; sustainable energy; pollution; recycling and waste management; sustainable development and so forth.
Today is the day to "Talk Green" and for "Green Ideas". What can we do to take care of planet Earth? Maya's bubble is not only a place where I can write down some of my ideas, but I would also like it to be a forum or a platform for others who want to either build further on what I write by sharing their ideas and knowledge, or engage in discussions and put forth some of their opinions. My knowledge is, for most of the areas, quite limited, and I would love to hear what others have to say.
The photographs shown here are from a trip I made to the Amazon a couple of years ago. I thought they might be suitable for this post.
*Both the pictures used in this post are from my private collection. Please do not distribute or publish these elsewhere. Contact me if you would like a copy.
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