Happy Earth Day to all! The theme for this 51st anniversary of Earth Day is, aptly we think, Restore Our Earth.
We dedicate this Blog to children everywhere.
It is children and youth who have motivated us to engage in our own learning and growth, including the creation of our Friends4Trees4Life Blog last year, as we both take personal climate action in order to be active contributors toward creating a healthy, resilient Planet Earth, for future generations to come.
Welcome back to guest artists ranging in age from 4-12, Charlie, Hannah, Connor, Emily, Claire, Brady, Elizabeth, and Karis, who share their stunning Earth Day artwork with us once again. Thank you for inspiring us to take care of our beautiful earth.
Why Trees?
As we take a moment on this Earth Day to reflect on what we have learned in our past year as co-bloggers before turning thoughts to the future, we look back on our very first posts explaining our purpose and chosen focus on trees.
October 20, 2019 Why Trees? [https://wordpress.com/post/friends4trees4life.com/3]
October 31, 2019 Why Trees? (continued) [https://wordpress.com/post/friends4trees4life.com/270]
“This is Your Brain on Trees“
It continues to be all about the trees for us!
To those earlier learnings about the importance of trees for carbon capture, we have become aware of the health benefits of spending time among trees. See for example, our recent post on Forest Therapy in Wishing Us All More Calm (April 8, 2021) – https://bit.ly/3emNN4C.
Thank you to Reader Jim (Toronto) for putting this on our radar, a recent Globe and Mail article with the cool title of “This is Your Brain on Trees” (by Hannah Hoag, April 17, 2021) – (Globe and Mail – https://tgam.ca/3v9DRm0).
Earth Day 2021 – Official Website
As the official website for EarthDay states, “As the world returns to normal, we can’t go back to business-as-usual.”
FIVE PILLARS OF RESTORE OUR EARTH™:
To learn more about the Earth Day organizers’ Five Pillars of Restore Our Earth, follow the links to:
(New readers also may be interested to see what we had posted last March 2020 on this topic in our “Food Waste and Climate Action” Blog post, at https://bit.ly/3nbdUjc)
The Great Global Cleanup
Global Earth Challenge – A Citizen Science Initiative
Learn about how to contribute to an Earth Day Citizen Science Initiative at https://globalearthchallenge.earthday.org/.
To learn more about the history of Earth Day and reflect on how we marked last year’s 50th anniversary theme of Climate Action, Reader’s may want to review our 2020 blog post, at https://bit.ly/3dD6RfZ.
A Moment of Gratitude
We invite ourselves and our Readers to take a moment today to reflect on what brings meaning and joy in our lives, what we are grateful for, and our aspirations and personal visions for doubling down to create a better world.
Some Other Earth Day Climate Action Ideas
If Readers feel inclined and inspired to do more, we offer these action ideas as possibilities for consideration:
Read the Official Earth Day Organizers’ Challenge https://bit.ly/2RLjoSZ
Learn more about and watch this short video clip on the History of Earth Day https://www.earthday.org/history/
Calculate Your Carbon Footprint https://bit.ly/2VehSLk
Learn about Canada’s Climate Plan, https://bit.ly/3dBeFPi
Learn about the Paris Agreement (Paris Accord), including which countries are signatories currently, and about science research informing the UN’s global effort to slow global warming and dramatically reduce green house gas emissions, to save lives, species and the home we all share, called Planet Earth, https://bit.ly/3ejhQu0
Check out CBC’s website dedicated to climate change information, science and news, at https://bit.ly/3dFPHyj. Listen to What on Earth with Laura Lynch, a CBC series of podcasts that explores Canadians’ experiences, challenges, questions and potential solutions for climate change – https://bit.ly/2QgXcTw
Take a moment, perhaps together with a young person in your household, to watch Google’s Earth Day animation
Donate a Tree – For example, we have made donations with OneTreePlanted and Tree Canada
Be inspired by Hannah’s art piece to watch the Earth Day episode on reducing plastics on tonight’s TVO’s The Agenda
Plant some seeds or bulbs
Participate in your Individual or Group Earth Day Cleanup Project (one of the 5 pillars of Restore our Earth identified earlier). For runners, we also learned about “Plogging” in last week’s Blog post, at https://bit.ly/3xbV8wD
Watch an episode or two of David Attenborough’s Blue Planet Parts 1 and 2 Collections of videos on BBC at https://www.bbcearth.com/shows/blue-planet. Always informative, thought provoking and inspiring we find
Take a walk outside and take a moment to wonder at the sights and sounds and bountiful gifts on offer from Nature – birdsong, soft breezes, warm sunshine, budding flowers and trees, earth worms aerating the earth, pollinators busily buzzing as they go about their essential work in bringing life to the crops we eat, forests (land based trees and ocean based kelp forests) capturing and sinking harmful carbon and offering life giving oxygen in return….perhaps encounter some of the estimated 8.7 million species of plants and animals on Earth, of which human beings are but one, all of us sharing this one and only planet Earth we call home….
Review of Documentary My Octopus Teacher
Want to watch a Netflix video that makes you want to do everything you can to keep our precious Earth vibrant and healthy while at the same time melting your heart? My Octopus Teacher is nominated for an Oscar in the documentary category. It has already won 2 awards, The BAFTA award for Best Documentary 2021, and the Producers Guild of America Awards -Outstanding Producer for a Documentary to Craig Foster who is also the main actor in the film. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a score of 100. My Octopus Teacher teaches us about the extraordinary intelligence of an octopus, showcases the underwater beauty of the Kelp Forest in South Africa, and reveals the incredible healing powers for Craig Foster spending a year in this cold ocean water tracking the lifespan of this octopus. Lucy feels this is a film worth seeing over and over and you will want to recommend it to your friends. It is expected that more films produced by Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed will come out of their observation and filming of the abundant animal life in this healthy kelp forest around South Africa.
FRIENDS4TREES4LIFE 
Celebrating Earth Day 2021 is a good idea. Thank you 😊🌍👍
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