Earth Day — Say What?

For those of us writing about the environment every day, Earth Day is a bit of a strange concept. Every day is Earth Day. That may sound cliche, but it really is like that for us (as I imagine it is for many of you readers). But while it’s easy to creep into a kind of cynical “the world doesn’t get it” mood when this day rolls around (especially when getting green pitches that are flat-out ridiculous), I think the day does offer opportunities.

Generally, I treat it as a day to sit back and reflect on things, and to push myself forward when it comes to things I’ve been putting off or not doing well.

Overall, though, it’s clear that a few things related to our daily habits are the biggest contributors to global warming, and most other environmental issues. And it’s clear if we want to protect our Earth (i.e. our water supply, food supply, air, and climate), we need to get to work revolutionalizing these things. These few things are:

• our food (especially livestock production)
• our transportation
• our electricity

Clearly, we tackle #2 and 3 on that list a lot every day here on CleanTechnica. But as I said, I think Earth Day offers a unique opportunity to give a little extra nudge. So, I think it’s worth using this coming Earth Day to encourage people to actually make that leap and go solar and/or switch to an electric car, electric motorcycle, scooter, electric bicycle, bicycle, or transit (serious financial savings available with those last two options).

It’s easy to say you’ll do something eventually. But sometimes we let “eventually” go on for too long, while getting a bit complacent in our routines and with “how thing are.”

So, what do you think? Up for taking a big step forward with your main mode transportation or your electricity supply this Earth Day?

Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring