Earth Day 2024
Vermont stands out as an active area on the Earth Day event map.
When the events are filtered by date, 4/22/2024, Vermont stands out as having zero events on Earth Day. How can that be? Apparently, some events forgot to register with earthday.org.
Green Up Day (like Love the Boot Week in Louisiana) is an Earth Day event. Every Vermonter should do their part to green up the state on Saturday, May 4, 2024. Register your participation so Vermont can claim the Guinness World Record for the longest litter pickup team before Louisiana realizes that it has a size advantage.
What kinds of things could a governor do to strengthen Green Up Day?
Hmm. This is the sort of thing I would do if I were governor:
- As Governor Davis did on the first Green Up Day, April 18, 1970 (preceding by four days the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970), clear the interstate highways of motor vehicles for the morning of Green Up Day. Experiencing the scale of freeways on foot and by bicycle is completely different than traveling them in cars. There is a lot of space for trash to accumulate on these freeways.
- Declare a climate-adjusted observation of the approximate time when Vermont experiences the same moment in the spring season as Green Up Day, May 1, 1971, when Green Up Day was fixed as the first Saturday in May, an event that was documented in the Congressional Record by Senator Aiken.
- Support updating the Bottle Bill, which was initiated from the experience of the first Green Up Day, to include all single-use containers and cigarette butts.
- Advance a proposal for a uniform, returnable & refillable bottle system for single-serving beverages. Older Vermonters may remember Stubby, the uniform beer bottle of Canada, which went extinct 40 years ago. It's time to give that program another try. Of course, there's a Wikipedia page about beer bottles.
Governor Davis with media:
