Earth Day celebrates its 40th anniversary today as student groups do their part to make sure the environmental activism holiday is nowhere near over the hill.
University groups are marking four decades of environmental activism this week with a slew of events from a farmer’s market to a stream clean-up to a film festival and ending in a Clean Energy Town Hall with Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) on Friday.
Earth Day began in 1970 as an effort by a small committee headed by Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D-Wis.) to educate the country about environmental protection. Earth Day is now celebrated in over 175 countries.
University groups have advocated year-round for environmental conservation efforts celebrated by the original Earth Day founders. Campus sustainability efforts have centered on local issues such as a Clean Energy Loan Fund bill for the city and saving the Wooded Hillock, an area behind Comcast Center, from demolition.
“I think that the entire crux of the movement towards mitigating climate change is about decentralizing things so we function as communities because really, if we live sustainably, we’re living close to what we’re doing and where we live,” UMD for Clean Energy Director Laura Calabrese said.
UMD for Clean Energy and other environmental groups and departments on campus came together yesterday on McKeldin Mall for “The Other Mother’s Day,” sponsored by the Student Government Association. The event was a collection of student groups with booths giving out information about their environmental sustainability efforts.
“It’s really hard to get the whole country to move in the right direction — that’s a lot of infrastructure,” Calabrese said. “But if we take this on locally, it’s less of an organizational hassle, especially for the government.”
Today, the Faith Community Network of College Park, an interfaith group made up of Islamic, Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist and Episcopal religious groups in the city, will gather to clean the Guilford Run Stream, which runs alongside Guilford Road in front of the Lutheran church.
“What we hope to do, as with most events for Earth Day, is to raise consciousness for the environment,” said James Vigen, a pastor at Hope Lutheran Church, which is part of the interfaith group.
Vigen said the interfaith group wanted to come together in “broader sense” and decided to ask Mayor Andy Fellows what they could do in the community to work together towards a common good.
“Mayor Fellows, with his environmental background, suggested that we do environmental work,” Vigen said. “We thought Guilford Stream was a central location between all of the faith centers.”
cetrone@umdbk.com
