Earth Day 2011: Even the smallest action counts

Each year people across the globe observe Earth Day, which falls on April 22. Earth Day aims to inspire awareness of and appreciation for global environmental issues. Observing Earth Day in Indonesia is highly relevant given the country’s serious environmental degradation in urban areas. Apart from that it is important to continuously promote environmental awareness among the public.

The Jakarta Post runs a special report on Earth Day to participate in the celebration of this important event.

Earth Day was first observed 41 years ago, when Gaylord Nelson, a United States Senator, founded it on April 22, 1970.

The choosing of the day is done in an effort to better understand the effects we have on our planet, calling every one of us to take action to improve the environment in our community.

Currently Earth Day is becoming one of the most significant events in the world of conservation. Earth Day brings with it understanding of our shared ecological responsibility and ownership of our planet; the only place we have to live. Earth Day is in fact is at present the largest widely celebrated international environmental event in the world.

The first Earth Day was attended by 20 million Americans nationwide, from college campuses to town halls, and massive teach-ins were organized in New York City and Philadelphia, the latter occasion turning into a seven-day event well-known as Earth Week. Now almost every country organizes a great number of incredible events. Everywhere communities get together to help each other and make positive steps toward protecting the environment. There are teach-ins, campaign, rallies, river and water network cleaning activities; and everyone are invited to be a part of the activities.

This year, Earth Day’s theme is “A Billion Acts of Green: Our people-powered campaign to generate a billion acts of environmental service and advocacy before Rio +20.” The aim of Earth Day 2011 is to gather at least one billion acts of services for the environment by the time the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro Brazil rolls around. The conference is better known as Rio +20. So far the listed actions are already near 100,000 as we can see in the Earth Day Network website.

Earth Day Network, the main organizer of Earth Day provide some inspiring activities to be followed worldwide such as Green School, The Canopy Project in which they plant one tree for every US$1 donation they get, Women and Green Economy that intends to create a road map for women to aggregate their power and promote their leadership in creating a sustainable green economy and mitigating climate change.

Some activities to be held in Indonesia that are listed in Earth Day Network are Green School Bali, Carnival and Folk Stage in Bandung, A Muddy Road to Earth Day 2011 where people are urged to collect non-organic waste and plastic which has been dumped in the wrong place. The action will be held in front of March 1 monument and the presidential palace.

In line with this year theme, Indonesians are celebrating Earth Day quite extensively, almost every city is organizing its own local activities, involving business people, government offices and NGOs.

This year, Earth Day is not about complex environmental concepts. Earth Day 2011 is about taking action at every level. Everyone can do something for our Earth. Every little thing counts.

This year’s theme reminds us that we should not wait until we have power to turn awareness into action with simple things we do every day. And it has been proven that Indonesian citizens can make a significant contribution. Last month, on March 26, simply by turning off the lights for 60 minutes hundreds of megawatts of electricity were saved during Earth Hour.

In Jakarta the activity received full support from Governor Fauzi Bowo; according to his calculation if 10 percent of Jakarta’s population dim their lights, it would save 300 megawatts hours of electricity power which is enough to light 900 villages and reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the main greenhouse gas, by 276.3 tons.

For Earth Day 2011 and World Environment Day, he is also planning to repeat the exercise.

Everyone of us can participate by doing simple things and connecting with others. This year
really provides opportunities for small actions. Even the smallest effort counts. Reducing the use of plastic bags, turning off the lights when not in use, choosing to walk instead of using your car when you want to go to a nearby mini market, stopping yourself when you’re an inch away from tossing garbage into a river and finding a garbage can instead of throwing it on the street, etc. So, how about you? What contribution will you give to our Earth?

The writer is director of Amrta Institute for water literacy