Coming up this Friday (the 22nd) is Earth Day 2016!!!

Want some free Earth Day ideas? Need some of the best ways to show your appreciation to this beautiful planet? Need some ideas to take your significant other on a nice Earth Day date?  Forgot until the last minute? Hopefully you called out of work already, and if not GOOD LUCK!

But really, if you can’t get the day off, that’s ok.  Earth Day should be celebrated every day of the year.  You might even think of considering turning these activities into hobbies!

Earth Day is one of the most under-appreciated holidays (in my humble opinion).

You don’t see Santa providing a breathable atmosphere for anyone, do you?

You don’t see the Easter Bunny providing a place for life as we know it to flourish, do you?

Exactly.

But don’t worry, dear reader.

I made a nice user-friendly list to help you make the most of your Earth Day! What fun!  Here is your Earth Day Activity List:

1. Go outside somewhere.  Are you outside now? GREAT JOB!  Take a big breath of that air and praise the planet for allowing you to exist.
2. Get a bunch of trash bags and go to public parks in your community and pick up trash!  Humans can be really gross, so you should probably get plastic gloves too.
3. Still have some trash bags left over? Go to a beach (if you have one nearby) and pick up the trash there.  If you are a local you know how frustrating it is for tourists to trash a place and then leave.
4. If you don’t have a beach, go to a parking lot and pick up the trash there.  Surprisingly lots of major stores seem to spend zero time picking up their parking lots.
5. A very obvious one: BUY A TREE AND PLANT IT SOMEWHERE (legally, please.  For some reason if you try to do this at the White House you get hassled).
6. If you have a house, maybe it is time to start that veggie garden! This is a great thing that continually helps the planet!  You will drive to the store less for veggies, and you won’t contribute to a veggie supply chain that creates greenhouse gasses.  If you have an apartment, you can make window boxes or buy them fairly cheap!  Joy!
7. Take your date on a trip to a State Park!  These are precious resources to us, and are constantly under attack by vested interests that want to buy up the land.  Enjoy them while we can.  Please.
8. Take your date to a vegan restaurant, or prepare a vegan meal yourself.  I know this may be strange to some, it was for me in the past.  But eating vegan is one of the best ways to help the planet.  A surprising amount of grain that the world produces is actually used to feed animals in other countries that we are privileged enough to use for food in the developed world.  Think about all the gas used in transporting all of the variables in this equation.  Eating veggies is not only better for you, but also helps protect the planet for future generations!  What fun!  (It tastes good too, by the way.)
9. Research environmental issues in your area or nationwide, find your elected representatives, and call/write a letter/ email them asking them to take a stand to protect our planet!  Take a selfie with your partner and mail it along so that they can see who their constituents are.  Who cares that you have a giant zit on your face, glaring at the world?   Just do it!  Far too often, politicians are detached from the lives of every day Americans. Let us remind them that we are real people, and they were elected to represent US.  (This is something you should try to do once a month, at least.) 
10. Buy a bunch of packets of flower seeds!  They are pretty cheap, and you can have a lot of fun with them.  Plant them anywhere!  (If you aren’t supposed to plant flowers somewhere, don’t get caught!)  You can also plant them at your house if you want, which is what I will be doing too.  If you live in an apartment, you can get them in window boxes, out in the breezeway area (your neighbors will smile. Or you can spice up your interior with some well placed flowers! Cool.  Plus, they’re like pets that don’t pee on your rug that your mother in -law gave you.  AMAZING!  They help filter your air too and make it fresher.  Nicely done, plants.  Nicely done.

 

These are just some ideas, and by no means are you limited to these.

What do you plan to do for Earth Day?