EARTH DAY 2023. Dedicated to the environment and celebrated in hundreds of countries, Earth Day takes place this Saturday, April 22, 2023. The opportunity to remember what tricks help preserve our planet…
[Updated April 21, 2023 at 4:51 p.m.] World Earth Day is celebrated, as every year, on April 22, giving an opportunity for citizens to reflect on the damage inflicted on the planet… and the very simple gestures every day to preserve it. Among them, the fact of favoring “short circuits” by eating local products, but also seasonal products to limit pollutant emissions and waste; the sorting of their waste or even the reflex of bringing back their expired or unused medicines to their pharmacist: collected, they are now transformed into energy.
Other tricks anyone can do are to turn off the light when leaving a room; to use public transport, bicycles, carpools or legs; turning off the water while brushing your teeth or shaving… Another green gesture is to rent rather than buy, which ultimately produces less waste. And here is to finish a solution that may seem crazy to some but is becoming more democratic: adopt a hen! The gallinaceous is indeed able to peck up to 150 kilos per year of food waste. And in return will offer you fresh eggs every morning for breakfast…???????
Earth Day 2023 occurs annually on April 22, which is this Saturday, April 22, 2023.
Many activities are offered the days following the event in the cities of France via this page of the French Earth Day website (just enter your locality in “Your current location”, to find the activities offered).
Coordinated by the “Earth Day Network”, Earth Day is all about appreciating the uniqueness of our planet Earth with its incredible biodiversity. According to the UN on its official website, the DNA of the “International Mother Earth Day” is more precisely to raise awareness of the challenges facing our planet, based on the idea that the Earth and its ecosystems are what nourishes us and sustains our steps throughout life. In short, our only home. During this day, various national and international activities are carried out to understand biodiversity and how to protect our nature, plants, animals and the environment as a whole. Some of the actions carried out consist of encouraging the purchase of more ecological products, the reduction of waste, recycling and reuse, or the promotion of the fight against climate change. Earth Day Network, the organization behind the movement, works with more than 22,000 partners around the world. Today, more than a billion people participate in World Earth Day activities every year to make it one of the biggest events in the world.
Earth Day is a holiday celebrated in the United States since 1970, always on April 22, in commemoration of the creation of the environmentalist movement by a Senator from Wisconsin, Gaylord Nelson. 47 years ago, the latter organized a major demonstration for the environment and to demand that it be taken into account in American federal policies. This parade led to the adoption of several founding laws such as those on the protection of air, water and endangered species, as well as the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) .
Taken over by the United Nations as a strong date on the calendar since 1971, Earth Day has become a global event since 1990 (the year since which France has taken part), in around 140 countries, mobilizing 200 million people. The Earth Summit, another founding event organized in Rio in 1992 and ancestor of the Kyoto conferences or COP21, should also be a lot on April 22. Over the years, and with a few milestone years such as 2000 or 2006, Earth Day, now called “International Mother Earth Day”, has gradually become the main environmental event on the planet, also the anniversary date of the environmental turnaround. In 2016, Earth Day took place on the same day as the signing of the Paris Agreement on climate change, resulting from COP 21.
The world today is at a “critical moment”, and according to the latest United in Science 2021 annual climate report by UN scientists, climate change and its consequences continue to worsen, despite the temporary reduction in CO2 emissions into the atmosphere due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The past year has again seen the devastating effects of global climate change: deadly heat waves in North America, particularly in British Columbia, which recorded an all-time heat record in June, with 49.6°C at Lytton, devastating fires in Canada, Siberia and around the Mediterranean, spectacular cold in the United States, extreme rainfall in China and Western Europe (Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands)… “We really have no more time to lose,” said UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, and even on our small scale…
With the melting ice and the expansion of the oceans driven by global warming, the level of the oceans could rise “several tens of centimeters” by 2050, explains AFP, and be “responsible for more frequent coastal flooding and more violent than today”, which could lead to a global warming “of 3 to 4°C”, underlines GEO. “But if the commitments made under the Paris Climate Agreement are fully met, it would still be possible to contain global warming to just below 2°C”, reassures the monthly dedicated to travel.
The map of risk areas according to rising sea levels, drawn up by the NGO Climate Central, makes it possible to visualize the rise in sea level on the coasts of metropolitan France. The cities of Dunkirk, Boulogne and Calais in Hauts-de-France, Le Havre, Dieppe and Cherbourg in Normandy, Roscoff, Brest, Le Conquet, Concarneau, Port Tudy in Brittany, Saint-Nazaire, Pointe Saint-Gildas and Sables-d’Olonne in Pays-de-Loire, La Rochelle, Boucau and Saint-Jean-de-Luz in New Aquitaine, but also Sète in Occitanie and Marseille, Toulon and Nice in Provence-Alpes- Côte d’Azur would be completely flooded in 2200, with sea level rise gaining 2 meters on their coasts.
If we tend to attenuate these alarmist projections by relying on current defense structures such as dikes or rockfill, AFP recalls that “if in certain coastal areas, the sea level rises by more than one meter , protection with dikes is also no longer possible”.
Extreme temperatures, coastline threatened by rising waters, drought… France will also have to face the significant consequences of climate change. And Météo France, the official service of meteorology and climatology in France, now provides tools that allow you to visualize “trends in climate change in the 21st century” throughout France, for each region. of the metropolis, but also for Reunion.
The first tool, Climat HD from Météo France, allows you to know if a particular region of France will experience a change in its annual and seasonal precipitation, or a significant drying out of its soils.
The second tool, published by Agence France Presse (AFP) but still based on Météo France data, is called Tomorrow, what climate on my doorstep and offers three scenarios on the climate future of your municipality: optimistic , intermediate or pessimistic. In Paris, for example, in the “optimistic” scenario, the average annual temperature rises only 1.6°C more by 2050 “thanks to a drastic, global and immediate reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. tight”. On the other hand, the “pessimistic” scenario announces 3°C more in the capital by 2050…
Rising temperatures, leading to increased CO2 concentration, leading to extreme weather events and rising sea levels, result in:
