Tomorrow is 2021’s Offical Earth Day!

Due to the pandemic, many events are being kept online. Worldwide, Education International will be leading the “Teach for the Planet: Global Education Summit.” This multilingual virtual summit will span several time zones and feature prominent activists from every continent, focused on the crucial role that educators play in combating climate change and why we need transformative climate education now. Earthday.org

You can join in by visiting https://www.teach4theplanet.org/.

If you can’t make it outside to join a community initiative, consider listening in on the main summit tomorrow or taking time to learn more about what others are doing around the world! To get you started, for today’s post I’m going to share a list of ways different countries are celebrating this event around the world. Perhaps some of the events will inspire you to make Earth day an event in your home!

Earth Day in Canada

Earthday.ca is Canada’s organization to celebrate Earth Day — every day! The site hosts a variety of resources to better understanding the history of Earth Day and connects Canadian’s to events happening all over the country. This year, the organization is hosting another initiative to plant trees across the country. The Earth Day t-shirt is designed in collaboration with a new local brand each year to support the greening of Canada. Thanks to this funding, trees will be planted across the country as part of the Tree Planting Relay.

The site also hosts an event’s calendar with links to events such as documentary viewings, virtual celebrations, community clean-ups, and more. One of the largest events happening in the country is the first annual Earth Day Everyday Celebration. This event will be a unique annual benefit that will bring together individuals from a variety of backgrounds and industries, each year offering different activities. This year’s benefit will consist of a virtual evening of comedy and cocktails a bit later on this year due to Covid-19, June 19th to be exact. So there’s still time if you are interested in attending! Tickets are on sale now.

Earth Day in the United States

The very first Earth Day was celebrated by America in 1970 when a United States senator from Wisconsin organized a national demonstration to raise awareness about environmental issues. Earth Day is now primarily hosted by EARTHDAY.ORG with the support of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Though much like Canada there are tons of smaller celebrations that happen across the country.

The Biden Administration has decided to convene a global climate summit on Earth Day 2021 to tackle the climate crisis at home and abroad, and to discuss restoring scientific integrity across the Federal Government. This “Leaders Summit on Climate Change,” will be held virtually on April 22-23, bringing together 40 world leaders for Biden to pledge his intentions to combat climate change through a clean energy revolution. EARTHDAY.ORG is streaming three days of climate change action starting April 20th including a youth summit, The Hip Hop Caucus’ We Shall Breathe summit, and global teach for the planet summit.

Earth Day in Romania

WWF-Romania already organized a series of online workshops for people to reconnect with nature, with their loved ones, and with themselves back during Earth Hour in March. There were workshops for healthy eating, and how to relax and recharge with Yin & Yang yoga. For this year’s Earth Day, The Romanian Science festival is hosting an online 1-hour webinar titled “Plastic - a solution for man, a problem for humankind” Cloud Solution Architect, Corina Milosoiu will challenge participants to learn about the history of plastic and environmentally harmful habits in our daily lives. She will also talk about how much plastic has been generated during the pandemic and discuss innovative ideas for combating the effects of plastic pollution.

Earth Day in Mexico

EDUCA, Educación Ambiental Mundial, in partnership with EARTHDAY.ORG, have come together to host SCHOOLS FOR THE EARTH 2021. This initiative will bring together more than 4,000 schools from the region in the framework of Earth Day, April 22, 2021. The program involves almost one million people: 110,473 teachers and 778,790 students in rural communities, urban areas, and indigenous intercultural schools. The goal of the Schools for the Earth program is for schools and universities to incorporate environmental education into their programs and educational practices, aimed at the development of institutional and personal competencies for sustainable development through quality environmental education, school by school, teacher by teacher, in Mexico and the world.

Earth Day in Switzerland

Switzerland has also moved its events online, with a prominent stream of the ETH Global Lecture Series: Unusual Partnerships for Planetary Action. Aron Cramer, CEO of Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), and Nina Buchman, Professor at ETH Zurich, are meant to discuss the state of the planet and the actions we need to take in order to restore it. They aim to cover questions such as: where are things today? What is science telling us? What is are businesses doing? How can we accelerate action to safeguard our planet for future generations? What do we need to understand in order to make better decisions? With Switzerland at the forefront of environmental innovation, it will sure to be an interesting discussion.

Earth Day in Germany

While I couldn’t find too many events happening in Germany this year, they are actively promoting connection with EARTHDAY.ORG. I did find a pretty unique event called ‘Clean and Train’ hosted by GREENLETICS Outdoor Fitness. This outdoor gym aims to motivate participants to clean up the environment around them by incorporating exercises into Earth Day activities. “We want to contribute to a greater environmental awareness and want to encourage people to pick up rubbish more often, instead of just passing by.” All the exercises are going to be published on April 22nd, while the virtual event continues on to the 25th — due to Covid 19, anyone can join in from afar with the movements being posted to their Instagram page.

Earth Day in Australia

This year’s Earth Day theme is ‘Restore our Earth’ which is a very prevalent topic of discussion in Australia given the devastating fires and floods that have taken place over the last few years. The Powerhouse Museum in Sydney is hosting an event called The Conscious Creator. This live event will host a discussion of conscious creators to share their views on sustainable practices and the possibilities within the design industry and beyond. There is also an abundance of educational school events, tree planting initiatives, and coastal cleanups going on as the country starts to rebuild post-pandemic.

Earth Day in The Philippines

The Philippines are leading this year’s initiative with a Webcast hosted by the country’s Climate Change Commission. The event aims to gather stakeholders and rally support nationwide in this year’s celebration of Earth Day. The CCC and its stakeholders will converse about the possibility of banning single-use plastics, sustainable consumption, and the country’s pursuit of ecosystem restoration. The Philippine Institute of Environmental Planners is also hosting a public zoom teaching event surrounding this year’s theme of “Restoring the Earth Through Green Recovery” for citizens of the Philippines, and 30 surrounding countries.

While not all this event information may be practical to you, I found it so interesting to read about different events happening all over the world and hope some of you do too. How some countries are prioritizing educating the next generation, and others are leading with political conversations. Despite the new struggles brought on by the global pandemic, countries have found a way to bring events online and continue to prioritize the future development of environmental education, strategy, and technologies. World events such as Earth Day are such a great reminder that we truly are in this all together.

In order to Restore Our Earth, climate change solutions must center around those most disproportionately impacted by environmental degradation and climate change — within our own communities, and the world.

Until next time,

— Claudia