Image: istockphoto.com
In Canada
The theme across Canada is picking up after ourselves. From coast to coast there are litter campaigns, schoolyards, playgrounds, parks and rivers are being cleaned-up.
Calgary is having a 22 minute makeover where everyone gets up out their chair and dashes out to pick up litter for 22 minutes. Lethbridge is having a BYOC (bring your own cup) event throughout the city and getting everyone to cut back on those Styrofoam cups.
In Montreal, the museums will be free for the entire week and there are 143 events taking place around the city and surrounding area. Toronto kicked off its Earth Week with a litter campaign that continues this week with an inorganic market where people can drop off their e-waste.
Vancouver will celebrate on April 26 with two events. Earth Day in conjunction with the Vancouver Folk Festival and Evergreen kicks off in Jericho Park. There will be music and a park clean-up. The 8th Annual Earth Day Event will happen again at Crowley Park.
South of the border
This past weekend Earth was celebrated at the Green Apple Festival in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Denver, Los Angelus, Miami and Dallas. Stars like Los Lonely Boys, Taj Mahal, the Neville brothers and Ziggy Marley were among the many artists performing. You can see the highlights today at 8 pm on MySpace, which is streaming the performance. Face book is also going black that day to save energy.
Those cities are continuing the celebrations with week long festivals and workshop. Babson College in Boston is installing wind turbines to power the school while Tenyo, Arizona is doing a door to door household chemical collection.
Get yourself on the map
If you’re participating in an Earth Day event, add your name to the Google Earth Day Map and leave a comment for others. You can add your name to the
International events
Buenos Aires, Argentina is having a huge outdoor festival as is Barcelona Spain. That festival is focussing on the fight against genetically modified foods. In Caracas, Venezuela, university students had signed the “Vow as a citizen of the world” and are holding contests to see who can come up with the best idea to solve some of their environmental woes.
Tokyo is having an organic farmers’ market with 40 restaurants cooking up meals as 100,000 monks gather in Way Phra, Thailand for a meditation on peace and the environment. While Russia holds an art competition, Guam is holding a Frisbee tournament. But that’s after the international road wave.
Even Star War fans are getting in on the action. The nature park InBio in Santo Domingo Costa Rica has invited Darth Vader and his Storm Troopers to the park where the dark lord will deliver his important message about looking after out planet.
Whatever you do today, celebrate our home, Planet Earth.
Shelagh McNally is the editor of Green Living Online.
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