Celebrated on April 22 since 1970, Earth Day is the official day to demonstrate support for environmental protection. This year’s theme is Green Cities. Join the Green Cities campaign and help mobilize a global movement to accelerate the transition to sustainable cities that invest in efficiency and renewable energy, and help solve the climate crisis!
Earth Day Event: UN Film Screening with National Geographic Adventurer Jon Bowermaster
Doing its part to support Earth Day, GFDD is organizing a NY Premiere at the United Nations of On the Edge, Antarctica, the latest film by award winning filmmaker and National Geographic adventurer Jon Bowermaster. The film focuses on the rapidly changing landscape of Antarctica, as affected by global warming.
For more information about this free film screening please clickhere.
Our Daily Activities Are Going to Kill Us
Currently, our rate of contamination is such that at least 2 million people die each year from air pollution alone. By 2050, the intense storms that have been felt around the world in the last couple of years are also planned to intensify dramatically according to research done by The National Centre for Earth Conservation in Reading, UK.
According to an article the International Weekly Journal of Science: Nature, we are talking about extreme temperatures, storms that governments and emergency organizations will not be able to respond to quickly enough, flooding, droughts, and even mass food scarcities worldwide.
The Damage is Done…But You Can Help Limit and Reverse It
Our Forests
Our world is covered by a beautiful flora and fauna inhabited by a ferocious destructor and contaminator: mankind. According to the UN, since the 1990s, the world’s forests have decreased by more than 4%, or 40 million hectares from the need for wood products, urbanization, and pollution. According to the journal Scientific American, we are losing approximately 30 million acres of forest ‘every year’ while another 30 million are damaged.
If you want to help preserve our forests, then please click here for a list of organizations fighting to reverse these shocking statistics and find out how you can help them.
Our Oceans
Our oceans are continuously desalinated and contaminated due to melting ice caps and fresh water contamination from sewage, trash and other human activates. In fact, according to an article by the National Geographic, there is so much solid waste, such as plastics, thrown into the ocean directly and indirectly by consumers that there are “trillions” of trash items that turn into “gigantic swirling garbage patches”. One of those ‘patches’ is so large that it is approximately the size of TEXAS (See more on the Pacific Trash Vortex). Worryingly, in 2010, another massive ‘patch’ similar to the Pacific patch was found in the Atlantic Ocean.
If you want to help preserve our oceans, please click here for a list of organizations working to improve the state of our oceans and to learn how you can help them.
Our Endangered Species
Before the incorporation of organizations such as the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF), more than 1,000 of species around the world were lost as a result of overhunting, overfishing, and habitat destruction. Currently, organizations such as WWF and others are fighting to limit and desist the loss of species from human activities.
Today, we are experiencing the 6th largest mass extinction of species the world has ever seen. However, unlike past extinctions, that were due to natural causes, this extension is due to anthropogenic activities that including human pollution, overhunting, overfishing and urbanization. In the United States alone, it is estimated that 7-18% of the entire flora and fauna is endangered.
According to a press release by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), it is estimated that of the 38% of total flora and fauna that has been studied around the world, 16,928 species are currently threatened with extinction.
If you want to help preserve our flora and fauna, please click here
10 Easy Steps To Do Your Part:
Whether you decide to volunteer with an organization or find that you simply don’t have the time or resources to help them, you can still follow these 10 simple steps:
We challenge you to make a difference by following this advice, one practical step at a time!
- Be conscious of your water use. Turning off your water while you brush your teeth and taking shorter showers will dramatically reduce your water consumption and your water bill!
- Leave your car at home. Leaving your car at home for only two days a week lowers greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 1590lbs per year! Try riding your bike or walking to work or school.
- Recycle. For every 7,000 workers recycling their all of their office paper waste, it is e equivalent of taking almost 400 cars off the road!
- Compost. By limiting the amount of solid waste you produce every year, you will not only reduce total pollution levels, you will even be able to replenish the soil, which could lead to planting a vegetable garden.
- Turn off lights. When you’re not in the room, unplug appliances and turn off unneeded electricity when you’re not using them. It only takes a second to be environmentally conscious.
For the full list of ways you can help save the environment, please click here.
This is our world; it is our responsibility to claim it back by preserving it…
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