Take Back the Planet, and Not Just on Earth Day

The following is an excerpt from National Aquarium’s CEO John Racanelli’s piece in today’s Baltimore Sun:

For over 40 years, Earth Day has sent a powerful message: that each of us has both the capacity and the duty to support the environment that sustains us. This is certainly a message that dedicated conservationists can get behind, but what about everyday people with busy lives, kids to raise and jobs to keep? For many, Earth Day has become a day of celebration rather than an urgent call to join a movement.

Earth Day Network, the organization behind Earth Day, cites the impressive statistic that 1 billion people participate in Earth Day activities each year, making it the largest civic observance in the world. Participants plant trees, clean streams and resolve to recycle more. In schools around the world, students spend several weeks learning about the planet and how they can make a difference.

What really matters, though, is what people do the day after Earth Day — and for the 363 days after that. Earth Day was born out of a desire to do something. In 1970, 20 million individuals from all walks of life united to protest the deterioration of the environment, and the results included the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act. Why can’t Earth Day 2013 be the start of this same kind of sea change?

My colleague Sylvia Earle, a renowned oceanographer whom Time Magazine called a “Hero for the Planet,” has said that the next 10 years may be more important than the last 10,000 in determining the fate of our oceans. She may as well be talking about the fate of humans. It may not be the planet that needs saving so much as we do.

 To read more of John’s call-to-action, click here. 

How are you celebrating Earth Day? Tell us in the comments or join the conversation on Twitter using #EarthDay! 

Thoughtful Thursdays: Let’s Make Everyday ‘Earth Day’

Every year since 1970, people around the world have come together on April 22 to celebrate the Earth. Considered the largest civic observance in the world, Earth Day is celebrated by restoring habitats and teaching others about conserving our planet’s natural resources and wildlife.

In recent years, the celebration of our planet has been extended by many to “Earth Week” and even “Earth Month.” I applaud those efforts to extend this day of recognition, however, they beg the question, when will we finally reach the time when every day is “Earth Day?”

With serious threats like climate change, ocean acidification and pollution having an increasingly negative impact on our ecosystems, one day a year to talk about the Earth simply isn’t enough. To make a real difference in the environment, we need to all adopt new behaviors in our daily lives – whether it’s in what we’re buying or what we’re throwing away – that can make an actual impact over time.

Since our inception, the National Aquarium has made a concerted effort to celebrate and preserve the Earth and its diverse ecosystems every day of the year. Whether it’s through engaging with the millions of people who visit our venues annually or through plantings and cleanups out in the field, our staff and volunteers are striving to change collective attitudes and behaviors that have harmed our planet for centuries. We celebrate Earth Day because it’s an opportunity to speak to folks about changing behaviors for the benefit of the planet and its people, but our goal is to minimize our impact on our natural world – and that happens 365 days a year.

This year, I’m asking you to join me in restoring and protecting our natural environment. There are a variety of actions you can take to minimize our individual and collective negative impacts. It’s can be as easy as:

–Sticking to these principles (in this order);

• Refuse –say NO THANKS to straws and lids when possible (we pick up thousands of these in our clean up events)
• Reduce –carpool, take public transportation or bike or walk to work one day a week – a major source of pollution is emissions from our gas-powered vehicles
• Reuse –get a reusable water bottle or shopping bag and USE it
• Recycle –almost every local jurisdiction has a recycling program.  Make sure you are up-to-date on what your county/city can recycle.  The list has expanded tremendously over the past couple of years and close to 50-75% of our waste stream can be diverted from our landfills if we take advantage of the systems that are already in place

–Buying local

–Making the environment part of your purchasing considerations.  This includes small every day purchases and larger decisions such as appliances, lawn mowers and vehicles.

–Conserving water

–Joining us for any/all of our conservation events throughout the year

–Join your local environmental organization for volunteer opportunities in your area

–Even better, starting a conservation initiative of your own and engage your surrounding community!

I’ll be celebrating Earth Day along with everyone else this year, and I hope you do, too. From that day forward, let’s fight together to make our planet a cleaner, healthier place for all of us to share. 

Thoughtful Thursdays: Celebrate Earth Day All Weekend

Each year, Earth Day — April 22 — marks the anniversary of what many consider the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970. At the Aquarium, our goal is to practice conservation every day of the year, but this weekend, in honor of Earth Day, we thought we’d do a little extra celebrating!

We have lots of fun activities lined up for Saturday and Sunday at our Baltimore venue, between 10 a.m.–3 p.m. Enjoy special animal encounters, repurpose recyclable materials into cool crafts, check out our eco-fair, and learn the tooth about sharks!

We’re also holding an e-cycle event, to send old or broken electronics to a second-life program, rather than to a landfill. Bring in your old cell phones, CDs and DVDs, and any other small electronics you’d like to dispose of, and we’ll give you a gift in return!

On Sunday, you’re invited to join Aquarium CEO John Racanelli and special guests Governor Martin O’Malley and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake at 11 a.m. for a tree-planting ceremony, as we celebrate our new partnership with the National Wildlife Federation. The event will take place in the Aquarium’s Waterfront Park, just outside the main entrance on Pier 3. Meet Ranger Rick, sign a pledge to plant a tree, and take one home to plant and nurture. Also on Sunday, if you ride your bike to the Aquarium, you can get a free tune-up courtesy of Joe’s Bike Shop!

Celebrating Earth Day every day

Yesterday we joined the country in celebrating the 40th Earth Day…but we do our best to care for and protect the Earth every day by incorporating simple actions into daily life at the Aquarium. Here are just some of the simple actions we take:

• In the Aquarium cafes, our utensils, cups, straws and lids are made from potatoes and corn, which are compostable and biodegradable. We also offer three bins for waste: compost, recycling and trash.
• The Aquarium Animal Programs staff repurposes toilet paper tubes, used towels, plastic bottles, old phone books, and other materials for education programs and animal enrichment.
• Staff members have the option to join a community-supported agriculture program that delivers organic, locally grown produce right to the Baltimore venue.
• We turned 53 wetsuits into 575 bottle cozies, available in our gift shop, which kept 92 pounds of neoprene out of landfills.
• When you walk across the newly reopened exterior harbor footbridge, do you feel a little spring in your step? We used 98,342 plastic milk jugs to renovate it!
• Last year, we recycled 50 tons of plastic, glass, aluminum, cardboard and paper; 388 pounds of “technotrash”; and 489 pounds of batteries. We also send in corks and energy bar wrappers to companies that “upcycle” them into new products!
• Every month, the Aquarium recognizes and rewards three staff members who conserve natural resources by walking, biking, carpooling or taking mass transit to work.
• Power-generating water valves are installed in Aquarium restrooms, which create and store power.
• Each year, every full-time Aquarium employee gets a paid day off to participate in a conservation event, such as a wetland cleanup or a tree-planting event.

You can read about more actions the Aquarium takes here and get some more tips for what you can do here. And come join us at the National Aquarium this Saturday for our continued Earth Day celebration!

What simple actions do you, your family, or your workplace take every day?

Simple Action: Share your yard with wildlife

Today’s Simple Action is to share your yard with wildlife.

Spring has arrived, and for many, yard maintainance and gardening has been added to the weekly to-do lists. There are very simple things you can do in your yard that will make a world of difference for our environment and wildlife.

 Americans directly apply 70 million pounds of pesticides to home lawns and gardens each year and, in so doing, kill birds and other wildlife and pollute our precious water resources. Instead of using pesticides, control insects using natural controls.

Also, plant native trees and shrubs because they use less fertilizer. Landscaping with natives, commonly referred to as “bayscaping,” also provides better food and shelter for wildlife, and requires less maintenance. These plants are adapted to local soil, rainfall and temperature conditions, and have developed natural defenses to many insects and diseases. Because of these traits, native plants will grow with minimal use of water, fertilizers and pesticides.