Climate
WORLD | Apr 22, 2021

Earth Day 2021: Restore Our Earth

Juanique Tennant

Juanique Tennant / Our Today

Reading Time: 2 minutes

As the global climate problem continues to worsen, each successive Earth Day has taken on a greater sense of urgency in the fight against the global crisis.

Celebrated every year on April 22, Earth Day celebrations and activities have in the past drawn the participation of an estimated one billion people – making it the largest secular observance in the world.

In light of the pandemic, however, many of the events slated for this year will take place virtually under the theme ‘Restore Our Earth’.

Guided by this theme, Earth Day 2021 will focus on natural processes, emerging green technologies, and innovative thinking that can restore the world’s ecosystems.

In this way, the theme rejects the notion that mitigation or adaptation are the only ways to address climate change; and instead highlights that everyone has a role to play in restoring the earth on which we live.

In the words of the earthday.org, website, “a healthy planet is not an option — it is a necessity”.

According to the earthday.org website, the restoration of our earth consists of five pillars:

Pillar One – The Canopy Project – focuses on improving our shared environment by planting trees across the globe.

Pillar Two – Food and Environment- this is articulated through the Foodprint for the Future campaign which aims to highlight, the different ways individuals and institutions can make an impact on their footprints, by reducing the environmental impacts associated with the growing, producing, transporting, and storing of their food— from the natural resources consumed to the pollution produced and the subsequent greenhouse gases emitted.

Pillar Three – The Great Global Cleanup – focuses on encouraging people and groups, to “sign up, show up and clean up” their environments.

Pillar Four – Climate Literacy – utilizes the Climate and Environmental Literacy Campaign, to ensure that students across the world benefit from high-quality education to develop into informed and engaged environmental stewards. 

Pillar Five – Global Earth Challenge – seeks to become the world’s largest coordinated citizen science campaign by developing a mobile application that empowers people around the world to monitor threats to environmental and human health in their communities, after which, people can take action to drive policy change.

Earth Day 2021, is being marked by a two day span of events which began on Tuesday (April 20) with a global youth climate summit, followed by a “Teach for the Planet: Global Education Summit” on Wednesday (April 21) and will conclude with the Global Climate summit led by President Biden and a digital event focused on earth restoration led by earthday.org.

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