First celebrated in
1970, Earth Day events are held across the globe to inspire us to
appreciate the world we live in and protect our environment.
Conservation of natural resources, ending pollution, protecting
wildlife, and creating sustainable environments are some of the themes
spread among many countries. --Leanne Burden Seidel
A
window washer hangs on a rope on the walls of the Ashton Morph 38
apartment building covered in a vertical garden of a native green
creeper called Laurel clock vine, also known as the Blue trumpet vine,
used also in traditional medicine, in Bangkok, Thailand, April 22. This
year's global theme is Green Cities, encouraging residents to turn their
cement cities into green and sustainable environments. (Barbara
Walton/EPA) #
A
traffic policeman signals to drivers during a smoggy day in Harbin,
Heilongjiang province. Smog-hit China is set to pass a new law that
would give Beijing more powers to shut polluting factories and punish
officials, and even place protected regions off-limits to industrial
development, scholars with knowledge of the situation said. Long-awaited
amendments to China's 1989 Environmental Protection Law are expected to
be finalized later this year, giving the Ministry of Environmental
Protection greater authority to take on polluters. (China Daily/Reuters)
#
Aceh
students with their bodies coated in mud roll a globe symbolizing the
Earth during an Earth Day celebration in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh
province on April 22. The protesters were demanding the protection and
preservation of Indonesia's forests that are rapidly being converted in
palm oil and agricultural plantations threatening the survival of
endangered species. (Chaideer Mahyuddin/AFP/Getty Images #
Pump
jacks and wells are seen in an oil field on the Monterey Shale
formation where gas and oil extraction using hydraulic fracturing, or
fracking, is on the verge of a boom on March 23, near McKittrick,
California. Critics of fracking in California cite concerns over water
usage and possible chemical pollution of ground water sources as
California farmers are forced to leave unprecedented expanses of fields
fallow in one of the worst droughts in California history. (David
McNew/Getty Images) #
Peyton
Toney, left, Jordan Cameron, Ellis Lyles and Victor Levingston, all
second graders at Northwest Elemenatary School in El Dorado, Ark.,
transplant zinnias into planter boxes that they grew from seeds in their
greenhouse on the school's campus, , April 21, in El Dorado, Ark., as
part of Earth Day Week activities. (Michael Orrell/The El Dorado
News-Times via Associated Press) #
Scavengers
on boats salvage plastic waste for recycling on the Citarum river
choked with garbage in Cihampelas district in West Java province, April
13. This immense aquatic rubbish bin winds 297 kilometres (185 miles)
across the island of Java, cutting through the sprawling Indonesian
capital Jakarta. Labelled "the most-polluted in the world" by a local
commission of government agencies and NGOs charged with its clean-up,
the river is the only source of water for 15 million Indonesians who
live on its banks, despite the risks to health and crops. (TIMUR
MATAHARI/AFP/Getty Images) #
Afghan
laborers lay new turf along a roadside in Kabul on April 22.
Afghanistan marks Earth Day on April 22 as the country struggles to stop
the long-running process of deforestation caused by increased demand
for timber and firewood. Soil erosion caused by deforestation often
triggers floods in parts of the country and to cope with the problem,
the government plants trees during spring every year - but maintaining
them remains a mamoth task. (Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty Images) #
In
this combination of two separate images, the skyline of the Central
Business District shows the air quality in the morning, top, and
evening, bottom, on April 1, 2014 in Beijing, China. More then 7 million
people die worldwide every year due to air pollution and it is now the
'single largest environmental health risk,' the U.N. health agency
stated in a recent report. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images) #
Activists
of the international environmentalist organization Greenpeace pose with
posters in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, April 13,
to support clean energy. After a one week meeting of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in Berlin, the final document
is expected to say that a global shift to renewable energy from fossil
fuels like oil and coal are required to avoid potentially devastating
sea level rise, flooding, droughts and other impacts of warming.
(Michael Sohn/Associated Press) #
Giant
machines dig for brown coal at the open-cast mining Garzweiler near the
city of Grevenbroich, western Germany on April 3. After concluding that
global warming is almost certainly man-made and poses a grave threat to
humanity, the U.N.-sponsored expert panel on climate change is moving
on to the next phase: what to do about it. (Martin Meissner/Associated
Press) #
A
broken beach pale lays waste as the sun rises , days after a BP
announcement that it is ending its "active cleanup" on the Louisiana
coast from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, on April 19, in Grand Isle,
Louisiana. The Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20, 2010,
killing 11 workers and spilling millions of gallons of oil. (Sean
Gardner/Getty Images) #
A
Sri Lankan quarry worker takes a wash in a pool of stagnant rainwater
at a stone quarry on Earth Day in Athurugiriya, on the outskirts of
Colombo, Sri Lanka, April 22. People across the globe hold events to
celebrate the Earth's environment and spread awareness on how to
conserve its natural resources on Earth Day. (Eranga
Jayawardena/Associated Press) #
Kashmiri
women row a boat filled with weed after cleaning the Dal Lake on Earth
Day, on the outskirts of Srinagar, India, April 22. The weed-clogged Dal
Lake is central to Kashmirís tourist trade and efforts are being made
to rescue the lake. In the past two decades the lake has shrunk by more
than half, according to environmental study reports. (Dar
Yasin/Associated Press) #
A
girl reads a book on her balcony as smoke rises from chimneys of a
steel plant, on a hazy day in Quzhou, Zhejiang province April 3. China's
plan for a market in air pollution permits promises to help clean up
its air cheaply, but the move could prove just as useless as previous
environmental policies unless the government stamps out lax enforcement
and spotty data. (Reuters) #
