Earth Week 2025
- Angela Sanford
- Apr 30
- 3 min read
by Raegan Densmore
Although it has already gone past, April 16th to the 22nd was Earth week. And April 22nd was Earth day. It is important to be sustainable and environmentally friendly all year around, however, this week highlights the importance of taking care of our Earth. As someone who cares about sustainability, I wanted to take the time to write about the ways to bring awareness about the cause, as well as emphasize why this topic is important.
This year, the theme is “our power, our planet”. This calls for people around the world to shift towards renewable energy in order to increase the use of clean energy globally. This can mean shifting to solar power, wind power, or even river power with hydroelectric systems. Using renewable energy provides benefits such as being abundant and inexhaustible, while fossil fuels are believed to only last us a few more decades. Renewable energy also reduces the amount of greenhouse emissions released. Since 2023, over 37 million tonnes of greenhouse gases have been released around the world, and it still has yet to reach its peak. By shifting to renewable sources, this increase can be limited.
Renewable sources such as solar and wind power, produce no carbon emissions like burning fossil fuels does, however, their manufacture and transport do create carbon footprints. That is why carbon dioxide removal techniques are important to implement. Technologies are currently being developed to help with this, such as Direct Air Capture with Storage (DACS) and Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS). However, there are simple and easy ways for people to take part in carbon removal as well, including planting trees. The most notable, natural way of carbon removal is to increase our forests. Trees are especially good at storing C02 removed from the atmosphere by photosynthesis. There are both engineered and natural ways of carbon removal that can bring down the amount of carbon released into our atmosphere.
Climate change and global warming are crises that can be fought by shifting to renewable energy sources as well. Global warming is only one of the causes of climate change but it is a very notable one. When the temperature of the earth rises, more water from bodies of water evaporates, meaning more water vapour is present in wetter areas, thus the wetter regions get wetter, and the dryer, more dry. By limiting the amount of greenhouse gases released, global warming can be reduced and thus, climate change. A special IPCC report states that all pathways that keep the temperature rise to 1.5 ºC require carbon removal. The faster the world reduces its emissions, the less it will have to rely on carbon removal.
Along with carbon emissions, burning fossil fuels also creates high levels of water, air, and land pollution. These pollutants affect the health of people who live in these polluted areas. The most polluted countries in the world include Chad, Burkina Faso, India, Bangladesh, Iraq, and Pakistan. These countries face challenges such as industrial activities, biomass burning, and vehicle emissions which affects the air quality, making it poor. Some health issues this creates include cancer, breathing problems, and immature death, which the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that 7 million premature deaths are caused by air pollution annually. By reducing the use of fossil fuels, pollution is also reduced and thus, less people will have to suffer.
Living in a rural area, we have lots of farmland. Another way to reduce carbon emissions includes increasing the amount of carbons stored in soils. An easy way to do this is to use compost. Instead of throwing your food waste in the garbage, put it into the compost bin and have it used in gardens or soils in general. Compost can not only improve yields, but also stores the carbon content into the soil. Planting cover crops in empty fields is another way to remove carbon as it can extend photosynthesis throughout the year. Many practices that increase soil carbon also improves soil health and can make agriculture more resilient to carbon change.
Lastly, it is important to do your own research. By being educated, one can learn about ways to promote clean and sustainable energy. Earth week enables participation in sustainable activity, but we are in a time where becoming more environmentally friendly is more crucial than ever. Even little changes and activities help. Overall, as a society, we should focus and shift towards improving the health of our earth, and thus, our community, and world.
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