![Globe Spin]()
What can YOU, and those around you, do to make your lifestyle more sustainable?
Today is a good opportunity to make a resolution or a promise to yourself and those around you to adopt a new habit or practice that will reduce your environmental impacts. Perhaps, you have already taken such a step a while ago and you may now scale it up or add something else to it?
EarthSolidarity!™ is focusing on individual and small-group initiatives that facilitate practical, local, down-to-Earth actions that can readily be replicated by many and thus add up to significant improvements in the community, the bioregion and — through equivalent locally and regionally tuned initiatives — contribute to our national and even global environmental health.
You may have found that it’s not so difficult, and perhaps you discovered some ways of making it easier or more successful than you thought possible at first. If so, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Encourage those next to you to adopt the same or similar action. We are looking for leaders like you that are willing to help organize or just advise small environmental action groups at the neighborhood level or within local businesses and organizations.
University of Tennessee leads the way in this year’s local Earth Day observances
KNOXVILLE — It’s once again time to celebrate Earth Day — Earth Week, really — and as it has in past years, Hellbender Press has a few suggestions for some fun ways for families to celebrate the planet we call home on April 22 and beyond.
The theme of this year’s Earth Day, which is its 55th observance, is Our Power, Our Planet.
If you have items you’d like to add to the list, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
This list will be updated.
STEAM Earth Day event
— 6-7 p.m., Tuesday, April 22, Carter Branch Library, 9036 Asheville Highway, Knoxville. Register here.
The University of Tennessee Office of Sustainability Earth Week
— The sustainability office has an entire month devoted to Earth Day.
— 3 p.m.-5 p.m., Tuesday April 22, UT Gardens, 2514 Jacob Drive: Join a cleanup of Third Creek.
— 11 a.m.-2 p.m. April 22, 21st Mortgage Plaza, UT Earth Day Festival will feature fun games, food and drinks.
Babies and Blooms Earth Day Festival
— 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday, April 26, INCubator, 100 Cherokee Blvd., Chattanooga
A brief history of Earth Day
A U.S. senator named Gaylord Nelson made a speech in 1969 in which he “called for Americans to meet for a day of environmental education and activism.” Not long after, the first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970.
The celebration of Earth Day has contributed to the establishment of many environmental regulations and agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the passage of important laws such as the Clean Air Act, the Water Quality Improvement Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. In 1995, Sen. Nelson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom award in recognition of his leadership in founding Earth Day.
Why do so many people get excited about celebrating Earth Day? Some people are just finding out about ways that they can help preserve things in nature. So they go to look at Earth Day booths to see in what kinds of projects they might like to get involved. They are excited because they want to actively contribute to the conservation of our natural resources.
Other people are already members of groups such as Advocates for the Oak Ridge Reservation, Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center, Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, Ijams Nature Center, Keep Knoxville Beautiful, Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning, Tennessee Native Plant Society, Wild South, Sierra Club, The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, Friends of the Earth and others.
If you are still looking for interesting things to do after Earth Day, you might like to participate in events with the Southern Appalachian Nature Photography Group. They have field events every month — nature hikes where people take photographs. They do things like walking the whole length of the Cades Cove loop and taking pictures! They also have a photography show at the end of the year.
Something else that you might like to do is to take classes through the U.T. Non-Credit Department’s Smoky Mountain Field School. The classes are always held on Saturdays. This year, 2025, is the 48th anniversary of the Smoky Mountain Field School.
It has courses in things like: Foraging for Food (June 21), Sensational Salamander (July 12), and many others.
