Earth Day celebrates 25 years

City residents will get to party for the planet next week as the 25th annual Earth Day returns to the Edmonton region.

April 22 is Earth Day, the international day that celebrates the environment and its protection.

At least four St. Albert schools plan to celebrate it by reducing waste and promoting environmental awareness.

Bertha Kennedy students will sample the fruits of the Earth on Monday with a special fruit salad, teacher Dolores Andressen says as an example. Parents will be chopping and peeling pineapples, mangos, papayas, kiwis, and more this weekend for students to try next week – all part of the school's ongoing efforts to encourage healthy eating. Students will learn about the great distances those fruits travel to get to stores and the importance of local food production.

"The Earth is a gift and we need to be stewards of it," she continues.

Keenooshayo students will celebrate Wednesday by learning about groundwater from Jolane Sorge of AECOM Engineering and putting on performances of The Lorax – the classic ecological fable by Dr. Seuss.

They'll also hold a garbage-free lunch and shut off all electronics in the school for two hours, says teacher Adam Rurka.

"We will run off the sunlight."

The city plans to release its annual State of the Environment report next week to coincide with Earth Day, says city environmental manager Mike Mellross.

The big party will be in Edmonton on April 26 where about 300 people are expected to turn out for the annual Edmonton Earth Day celebration. Organized by Earth's General Store manager Michael Kalmanovitch, the free event will feature about 14 local environmental organizations and dresses made of garbage by the group Garbaganza.

Edmonton Earth Day used to draw around 35,000 people, but has shrunk considerably in recent years due to its struggle for a permanent home. The event has migrated from Hawrelak Park to Fort Edmonton to the Earth's General Store parking lot in the last decade.

"This is our rebuilding year," Kalmanovitch says, so they've moved up to a slightly bigger venue: the mini-park at 10120 104 St.

"I didn't want to go into a big park with a really small event."

Kalmanovitch says he doesn't have anything big planned for this year, which is the 25th anniversary of Earth Day in Canada. He did plan to invite some of the founders of the Edmonton Earth Day festival to attend, including St. Albert's Peter and Mary Jansen, and hinted that there might be cake. There should otherwise be music, speeches, worm composters and bicycles aplenty.

Move for the Earth

Earth Day's theme this year is to clean your commute, which is why Kalmanovitch encourages people to walk, bike, bus or LRT their way to the Edmonton event instead of driving.

"The three largest ways we impact our environment are through food choices, our home or shelter, and our transportation or mobility," he says.

Homes account for 40 per cent of St. Albert's greenhouse gas emissions, followed by transportation at 32 per cent, reads the city's 2010 greenhouse gas inventory report.

Many Edmontonians drive themselves to work and idle their cars, depleting finite fossil fuels and producing pollutants in the process, Kalmanovitch says.

Biking or walking to work twice a week instead of driving will trim about half a tonne off the average person's carbon footprint, reports Earth Day Canada. You can also cut your fuel consumption by about 10 per cent by driving the speed limit.

Transportation also affects the pollution footprint of your food, Andressen says. You can shrink that footprint by growing fruits and vegetables in your own garden.

It's important for us to reduce our impact on the Earth before we hit a tipping point, Rurka says.

"We only have one planet, so the stakes are pretty high.

Edmonton Earth Day runs from noon till 4 p.m. Call Kalmanovitch at 780-964-8725 for details.