Celebrated on June 5th every year, World Environment Day was originally started by the United Nations General Assembly in 1972 to mark the opening of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. Each year there is a theme and call to action for everyone to take a good hard look at the state of the environment and our impact on it. This year the theme is “Kick the Habit! Towards a Low Carbon Economy.” And that's exactly Girlawhirl's goal: to reduce her carbon footprint as much as possible
The United Nations wants everyone – from Heads of State to everyday citizens – to scrutinize their daily practices and see how they can trim their greenhouse gas producing ways. Girlawhirl's new pledge: to bust out her bike and use it to get around town whenever she can.
A 2004 report in the journal NATURE, by 19 scientists from around the world, estimated that by 2050 more than one million species could become extinct because of global warming. So Girlawhirl's doing everything she can. Stop Global Warming has some great ideas to help reduce carbon footprints and save the environment:
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• Use a reusable water bottle. Buried in a landfill, a plastic bottle can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade!
• Recycle cans. One soft drink can recycled by each elementary school student in America would save 24.8 million cans. That would be enough aluminum to create 21 Boeing 737 planes.
• If all Americans viewed and paid bills online, we'd save 18.5 million trees each year.
• The world uses one million bags a minute. Bags are used an average of twelve minutes before disposal. The best answer to "paper or plastic?" is "neither." Bring your own reusable bag when you shop.
• Unplug unused electronics and save $256 per household per year.
All facts courtesy of stopglobalwarming.org.
related articles:
| Jun 5, 2007: |
world environment day, it's today. read full entry |
| Jan 25, 2007: | girlawhirl goes green in little ways that add up to big differences. read full entry |
| Jan 18, 2007: | girlawhirl joins stopglobalwarming.org's virtual march. read full entry |