Earth Awareness Day

Today marks the 46th Earth Awareness Day, a day to demonstrate support for environmental protection around the world. As the 50th anniversary approaches, the movement is working towards a huge goal – to plant 7.8 billion trees and they are starting now!

The Earth Day network grew out of the first Earth Day and has become the world’s largest recruiter to the environmental movement, working through a combination of education, public policy and consumer campaigns. The very first Earth Day was held on 22nd April 1970 and is credited with launching the modern environmental movement, with many landmark environmental laws being passed in America soon after.

strong>Now over one billion people around the world take part in various Earth Day activities, so planting 7.8 billion trees in the next five years may not be such a huge task after all.

When I think of the environment, trees are the first thing to come to mind. Not only are they are huge part of our environment, they are so important to our lives. Without trees we simply wouldn’t be able to breathe clean air. They absorb odours and pollutant gasses such as nitrogen oxides, ammonia and sulphur dioxide. We all know that trees also absorb CO2 from our atmosphere and give out oxygen – in a single year, an acre of mature trees absorbs the same amount of CO2 produced by driving the average car 26,000 miles!

You can help by planting your own trees or donating to the cause. Visit www.earthday.org to find out more about what you can do to help environmental issues and make the world a cleaner, healthier place for future generations.