Today marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, and the theme for this year’s celebration is “Climate Action.” Here at streets.mn, we have a lot of ways we’re taking action on climate breakdown, including the formation of our Climate Committee, a carbon audit, hosting trash clean-up events, and, as always, climate-focused articles from our wonderful authors.
Our climate crisis is a huge and systemic problem, and one that will take all of us to address. There are big changes we need to make to our world, and also to our lives. There are also smaller things we each must do that make a real difference (just like “every vote counts!”) and, importantly, remind us every day to work toward a better future. Some of the little climate-focused things I’ve built into my life: gardening, ditching my car and bicycling to work (ok, not as much with the current work-from-home situation), being a part of streets.mn’s Board of Directors, and keeping our waterways clean by adopting my neighborhood storm drains!
Adopt-a-drain sign in my yard, with gnome houses
In the midst of the current COVID-19 pandemic, many traditional Earth Day celebrations have been cancelled. We unfortunately cannot gather to plant trees or clean up the city, but we can do these sorts of things on our own. As Adopt-A-Drain puts it, we can take “Alone-Together Earth Day Action” by cleaning up our own street!
My closest storm drain, free of leaves and debris