Serenity Barron
Staff Writer
Earth Day occurs on April 22, and St. Louis organizations have events planned.
Also senior Casey Murphy, environmental club president, and sophomore Irene Henry, Vice President, and the World Wild Fund offered conservation tips.
On April 17, in Forest Park the annual Earth Day Festival is held. Last year there were, “25,000 visitors and 250 venders,” according to St. Louis Earth Day.org.
The Botanical Gardens and Tower Grove Park will hold the St. Louis Earth Day Community Festival on April 20. “The theme of this year’s festival is “Creating a Sustainable World – What Can You Do?” The event will include educational displays, tree planting, citizen action opportunities and hands-on demonstrations for kids,” according to the Missouri Department of Conservation.
Earth hour occurred on March 26, at 8:30 p.m., and the goal was “to reach more than one billion people in 1,000 cities around the world, inviting communities, businesses and governments to switch off their lights for one hour,” according to World Wild Life.org.
At the “I matter” march on May 8, people protest the amount of C02 in the atmosphere, and the school’s environmental club will probably attend.
“The United States is the world’s single largest contributor to global warming, with average annual emissions of 19.6 tons per person? That is nearly five times the world average of 3.9 tons per person. The impacts of climate change are too great to ignore, and we must do everything in our power to protect our future,” according to World Wild Life.org.
Some Suggestions for Greener Living:
-Recycle everything possible (for convenience now recycling bins are placed by every trash can in the school)
-Bring lunch in brown paper bags (recycle afterwards)
-bring reusable lunch bag and Tupperware containers
-try walking to school
-Carpooling or mass transit “Over a quarter of the vehicle-miles travelled by households are for commuting to and from work – usually with one person in the vehicle. Carpooling and mass transit are among options that offer big reductions in carbon emissions,” said World Wildlife Fund.
-Unplug phone chargers when not in use
-Limit shower time and or turn off shower when shampooing/conditioning
-Use reusable water bottles. “On average, the United States consumes 50 billion bottles of water every year which requires 2.7 million tons of plastic to produce and generates 2.5 million tons of CO2,” said World Wildlife Fund.
