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22 Days to a Meaningful Earth Day
March 27, 2024
As the daylight grows longer, the time to Earth Day grows closer! The Creation Care Team put together daily practices to help you prepare for Earth Day and grow in your care for God’s glorious creation.
Week 1
Monday, Day 1: Eat a meatless meal. For each meatless meal, you’re saving 133 gallons of water.
Tuesday, Day 2: Pick up some litter in your neighborhood, at school, in your yard, on the street, in a parking lot. The Earth will breathe easier!
Wednesday, Day 3: Start making it a habit to turn off the lights every time you leave a room.
Thursday, Day 4: Did you look at your phone today while parked and the engine was running? Save yourself some money and avoid idling your vehicle. Idling for more than ten seconds uses more fuel and produces more emissions that contribute to smog and climate change than stopping and restarting your engine.
Friday, Day 5: Pack a waste-free lunch without single-use containers or packaging. Can you do it tomorrow, too?
Saturday, Day 6: Find your county’s list of accepted recycling items and compare your recycling bin contents. Are you recycling things that shouldn’t be in the bin? Take time to assess how much plastic you’re using.
Week 2
Sunday, Day 7: Does your utility offer renewable energy providers? Spoiler alert: It does. It’s easy to choose the renewable energy provider with BGE. Take a few minutes and opt in. You won’t have to do anything more – BGE deals with the billing.
Monday, Day 8: Buy a reusable mesh produce bag and take it to the grocery store with your reusable shopping bag. They are lightweight so they won’t tip the scales when you buy your produce!
Tuesday, Day 9: Do you have vampire appliances costing you money? Look up what appliances are the worst offenders and take action on yours.
Wednesday, Day 10: Watch a sunset or a sunrise. Can you imagine anything more wonderful?
Thursday, Day 11: Give up your disposable plastic water bottle. Commit to only using a reuseable water bottle – even at sporting events!
Friday, Day 12: Check out the air quality in your town today. Compare it with four other cities, including some international places. The World Health Organization found that air pollution causes one-third of the deaths from stroke, lung cancer, and heart disease.
Saturday, Day 13: Do you have a yard or flower garden? Can you plant some native pollinators?
Week 3
Sunday, Day 14: Do you know what Indigenous people lived in your town before they were displaced? You’d be surprised they are still around and practicing their culture. Read about them.
Monday, Day 15: Can you take the train instead of flying to where you’re going? Are you willing to purchase come carbon offsets if you fly? Try it out today!
Tuesday, Day 16: Put the fertilizer away this season and have your lawn grow naturally. A lot of fertilizer runs off into waterways or breaks down in the soil, releasing nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas. Plus, you might not have to mow as often!
Wednesday, Day 17: Forego that fast food meal and avoid contributing to deforestation of the rain forests.’
Thursday, Day 18: Take a walk or a hike…with no ear buds! What do you hear? What do you see? How do you feel?
Friday, Day 19: Check the national weather report. Were there heat waves? Were there floods, tornados, fires or storms? Read a local newspaper report where devastating weather occurred.
Saturday, Day 20: Push the envelope. Eat a vegan meal (no dairy or meat). Vegan diets cut the destruction of wildlife by 66% and water use by 54%.
Week 4
Sunday, Day 21: Can you plant a tree in your yard? Trees absorb CO2 and filter particulates out of the air and cool the Earth. If you don’t have a place to plant a native tree, investigate programs that plant trees in cities (Baltimore Tree Trust) or forests. Arbor Day is April 26.
Earth Day, Day 22: Have a celebration and take a moment to thank the Earth for sustaining us every single minute of every single day. Your gift to her is simple, keep doing things to help heal the damage done and mitigate the damage going forward. We can all do something to help.