Neighbourhood Clean-ups, Ziggy Marley And Banana Peel Baking: Earth Day Celebrates 51 Years: News

Neighbourhood Clean-ups, Ziggy Marley And Banana Peel Baking: Earth Day Celebrates 51 Years On Thursday, April 22

Now 51 years old, Earth Day is just hitting its stride.

Since 1970, Earth Day has been an annual event demonstrating support for environment protection. From its humble beginnings in 1969 at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco, the “day to honor the Earth” first proposed by peace activist John McConnell is now celebrated on April 22. Globally this year, the activities likely will include over a billion people in more than 193 countries.

Here’s what caught our eye.

Alberta Land Institute

Alberta Land Institute is working hard every day helping Alberta make better land use decisions. Nothing is more important, or more complex, than the choices we make regarding the use of our land, water, and natural resources. These choices, made by policymakers, citizens, producers, consumers and property owners, shape not just our landscape, but also our economy and our quality of life.

The theme of this year’s Earth Day suits us well – Restore Our Earth.

Check Check out an overview of our ongoing research projects:

There is a growing interest in establishing markets for ecosystem services in Alberta. Check out our Ecosystem Service Markets research
Regenerative agriculture, climate smart agriculture and conservation agriculture are management practices associated with higher soil quality. Check out our Sustainable Agriculture: Soil Health research
Alberta experiences the highest rates of property loss due to disaster in the country. Our research program is looking at ways to improve resilience in Alberta's communities through better planning, regulation and decision-making. Check out our Land Use, Resilience, and Environmental Risk research

Future ALI research efforts and collaboration
Later this year (spring 2021), ALI will be issuing our Call for Proposal. If you would like to be alerted for the request to submit, please send us a request. The theme of the call in 2021 has been identified as Soil Health and Policy. ALI intends to take stock of sustainable agriculture efforts in Alberta and their impacts on soil conservation in the province. Our research will highlight ways in which the current regulatory and policy environment facilitates or hinders sustainable agriculture in the province.

Earth Day events – globally:

Earthday.org will hold a Restore Our Earth™ summit — where they will cover natural processes, emerging green technologies, and innovative thinking that can restore the world’s ecosystems. The summit starts at 10 am MDT.
Check out Earthday.org's Earth Day quizzes. How much do you know about our Earth, its species, its resources and its threats?
Ziggy Marley is performing TONIGHT on National Geographic’s Youtube channel. The son of reggae icon Bob Marley and Rita Marley will be one of the highlights of Nat Geo’s Earth Day Eve 2021 streaming concert on Wednesday evening. Marley will be joined at the concert by Willie Nelson, Yo-Yo Ma, AURORA, Angélique Kidjo, José González, Maggie Rogers, My Morning Jacket, Rostam, Valerie June. Plus, special appearances from National Geographic Explorers Brian Skerry, Dr. Jane Goodall, Lillygol Sedaghat, Dr. Lucy Hawkes, and Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant. The concert starts 6:30 PM MDT.

Earth Day activities happening in Alberta:

Many neighbourhoods across the province are hosting clean-ups Thursday and through the weekend. Plus, there’s a city-wide clean up planned for Edmonton.
Earth Day in Calgary – we are intrigued by the EcoHack-a-City event happening across the country with contributors from the City of Calgary, Moncton, Ottawa, Laval and North Vancouver. Learn about local environmental issues concerning municipalities from experts.
Empowerme is hosting a free Energy Savings Eworkshop, Thursday at 12:30 pm MDT. Help reduce the impacts of Climate Change by conserving energy - simple tips and doable behavioural change to reduce energy consumption, be more energy efficient and save money on energy cost.
Build Earth Day musical Instruments with your family, with this City of Calgary Parks and Recreation activity.

Earth Day activities happening in Canada:

Earthday.ca hosts a terrific list of activities. Many are bi-lingual and are suitable for families. Almost all of them are online, to accommodate COVID safety across the nation.
- We’re pretty excited about the Tree Planting Relay.
- Perhaps we’ve been working at home too long, but the idea of a Food Fight Webinar sounded pretty cool to us.
- The seed stewardship webinar from Vancouver sounded cool as we come out of winter in Alberta.
IKEA Canada has partnered with a number of prominent Canadian chefs to write a cookbook with an aim to reduce food waste. Download your free copy of the book here. Every Sunday, the chefs are demonstrating a recipe on Instagram LIVE. We’d love to know if you are going to make the banana peel bacon. Such an interesting use of food waste.
CBC Gem still hosts these Land and Sea episodes in their archive - Earth Day Viewing: 4 Short Docs that Educate and Entertain | CBC News – we particularly enjoyed the one about honeybees.