It’s that time of the year again… Earth Day!
Each year I feel like I need to blast the internet with Earth Day posts on April 22nd because I have a series of books about the trophic cascade which feature climate change and the detremental cause and effect that human impact creates on our planet in various ways (the If Animals Disappeared series). What I often am left with is a feeling of… isn’t every day Earth Day?
I love that we take time out of our busy lives to celebrate specific months and have days to raise awareness… these are good and noble things, for we all should pause our lives frequently and take a moment to celebrate the diversity of the world around us. However, every Earth Day, I think the same thing that many people even say on earth day, which is, “treat every day like it’s Earth Day”. This is true! And we can do it.
I suppose my message blast this Earth Day is simple: live well, be kind, and do your best for our planet. The wonderful thing about making strides for our planet is that people are all uniquely and wonderfully individual with different lives, circumstances, and perspectives. This means all of us can do something special to help our planet each and everyday. For me, it might mean making a sustainable permaculture garden and teaching kids about our planet with my books, but for you it might mean lobbying the government on more regulations for our planet, voting for representatives whose focus is on a green future, teaching others about our planet, collecting data to help make our world better, not eating certain things to better help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protesting in the streets, taking public transit, not traveling long distances by plane, supporting local agriculture instead of buying from large supermarkets… there are an infinite amount of ways to help our planet. So whatever it is, we all have a small thing we can incorporate into our lives to make the planet healthier.
Each thing we individually do, someone else out there might not be able to do… so in doing that speicific and unique thing, you help our planet and other people just because you’re able to do it. This is why in the back of all my books, I have a list of things you can do to help each animal… because each person can do one thing, or two things and incorporate them into their lives. If each person tried to do every thing… well, it’s just too much and we would collapse under the weight of it all. I think that’s why I resonated with If Bees Disappeared so much as I wrote and illustrated it – all small things, when added up, have a HUGE impact. That means that if we treat everyday like it’s Earth Day, all of those days and actions will add up to make our planet healthier and more sustainable for years to come.
So I leave you with that this Earth Day… don’t stress about what you can’t do or didn’t do… focus on the little things you can do and give yourself a bit of love for helping to infuse your life with the celebration of our planet each and every day.
Be kind to yourself, be kind to others, and be kind to our planet.
