Happy #EarthDay 2021!
Image: Mural by my super talented brother-in-law, wildlife artist Rory McCann who creates beautiful murals to connect people to the wider world by bringing nature to their spaces. Rory works in many settings including schools, where young children can begin to understand and appreciate the beautiful world we live in....and encourage them to be fighting for it! You can find his website here and his facebook page here.
Earth Day
This year’s theme is ‘Restore Our Earth’ with a focus on natural processes, emerging green technologies, and innovative approaches to restoring the world’s eco systems.
Restoring the earth to a better state requires a holistic approach targeting many areas: reforestation, improving agricultural practices, clean ups, restoration technologies, day-to-day actions by us all, to name just a few!
One of the areas we can think about, and begin making conscious decisions about, is our FoodPrint.
FoodPrint measures the environmental impacts associated with growing, producing, transporting, and storing of food. This includes the resources consumed, to pollution produced and green house gases emitted.
Although foodprints are hugely important, and should be considered if possible, there are many factors surrounding people's choice of food and suppliers. Some of these are access, affordability, health, and culture. All of which shape our choices and decisions about what we eat.
Like always, there is no one size fits all with the best foods to buy, our choices are influenced by many things – some within our control, and some not. But through Earth Day campaigns and other fantastic organisations, we can learn about the way our choices impact the planet and its inhabitants to see if there’s anything we can do to help!
You can visit here to discover your food impact, learn about the systems, discover new recipes, and learn about different styles of eating to try out. The Earth Day website, as well as many others, provides lots of information about other ways you can support campaigns:
Clean ups
Adapting your travel
Food waste
Plastic use
Things to try around your home
It’s a BIG topic. And one I can’t pretend to have nearly enough knowledge on. But I’m enjoying learning more and more, and making little choices, where I can, to support the #RestoreOurEarth movement.
Let's start to consider our choices so that we can say #everydayisearthday
Here are some useful links if you want to learn more, food or otherwise:
WWF's top 10 Tips for eating more sustainably
A selection of up close pieces from Rory!