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Children enjoying Earth Day 2022 at the Refuge
Children enjoying Earth Day 2022 at the Refuge

That Big Day in April

What’s a super-important day that happens in the middle of each April?

No, not that day! 

I am thinking of a way better day than that. More fun that that, more uplifting than that, and generally more eagerly anticipated than that by all but green-eyeshade-wearing accounting professionals.*

I’m referring, of course, to Earth Day!

And if you are on this website, reading this blog, you may know a fair bit about Earth Day already…or you may think you do, anyway…

Let’s play a little trivia game to see what we know or could learn about Earth Day. Here are a few questions, in generally increasing order of difficulty. The answers are below. Don’t peek! Cheaters are only cheating themselves, after all…

  1. On what day each April is Earth Day celebrated?
  2. What was the first year in which Earth Day was celebrated?
  3. When did Earth Day go international?
  4. How many countries now celebrate Earth Day?
  5. Which U.S. senator first proposed a formal recognition of Earth Day? Bonus point if you know what state that senator was from.
  6. What person did that senator work with to plan and implement the initial Earth Day movement and events?
  7. True or False: The two Hollywood actors who spoke at the first Earth Day event in New York City’s Union Square were Robert Redford and Paul Newman.
  8. What famous poet attended the first Earth Day event in Philadelphia?
  9. And lastly, name one of the two reasons that the organizers of Earth Day picked the date that they did.

How’d you do? 

Earth Day is coming up soon, and since you are on this website, reading this blog, the odds are that you probably care a fair bit about it. So here are a few things you can do to put some of your own environmental interests and passions into action around San Francisco Bay.**

  • Compost. Seriously. It’s not that hard to set up your home composting system. You can start here for some EPA-provided advice: Composting At Home | US EPA
  • Switch to rechargeable batteries in all of your home battery-dependent devices like remote controls, flashlights, portable speakers, etc.
  • Carpool or ride transit. The traffic and parking around are almost back to pre-COVID levels, but BART is still uncrowded.
  • Go meat-free for a day here and there – or more if you can.

And even better:

  • Attend an Earth Day event like this one that the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge is putting on from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Refuge headquarters in Fremont. This is going to be a fun one! (So fun that Salty Dave will be there with posters and a fun game for the kids!)
  • Volunteer with one of these local non-profit organizations, which (as you know from reading this blog!) are some of our most important partners and collaborators in restoration in the South Bay:
    • Save The Bay – They are putting on a volunteer cleanup event from 9 a.m. to noon on Earth Day, but they do a TON of other events too. Their calendar is here. Main volunteer information page is here.
    • San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory – They don’t seem to have an event on that particular Saturday, but they have a very active volunteer program, and their calendar is loaded with options.
    • The San Francisco Bay Wildlife Society runs many of the environmental education activities that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hosts at the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge. They have docents and do tours, and manage the butterfly garden, to name just a few. Their volunteer info page is here.

Those are just a few ideas to get you started. No one can tell you what kinds of volunteer activities or Earth Day event participation will rock your world. But I do hope you and your family and friends will try out something on or around Earth Day. Volunteering is good for the soul, builds community, and connects us to the world around us.

Thanks for reading!

 

Answers to the Trivia Quiz

  1. April 22
  2. 1970
  3. 1990
  4. 192 (so far)
  5. It was Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin.
  6. Denis Hayes, an environmental advocate who later headed up solar power research in President Carter’s administration.
  7. False! It was Paul Newman and Ali McGraw. I’ve never heard of Ali McGraw, but she must have been cool to have been hanging out with 1970’s-era Paul Newman.
  8. Allen Ginsburg
  9. It was John Muir’s birthday and also – since it was largely dependent on the involvement of college students – that time slot is between spring break and final exams on most academic calendars.

*Including my wife, so please note that I am not denigrating accountants or the accounting professions in general. I’m just noting that they view April 15 as the end of the months-long grind known as “tax season” and thus are among the few of us who eagerly anticipate that day as much as little kids anticipate Halloween, whereas most of the rest us kind of dread it. 
**Think globally, act locally. It used to be a common bumper sticker, and I don’t see it around as much as I used to, but I still think it’s a great idea.  
 

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