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Why do we celebrate Earth Day?

This day is dedicated to our mother Earth and we are all celebrating the Earth Day today. Many communities even celebrate the whole week as Earth Week. But why?

To support the environmental protection effort to save our planet Earth, that is our home.

This means, on Earth Day, we all, accept that we have already exploited our planet Earth and continue our carnage to the extent that it gets beyond repair on its own. Thus planet Earth is being slowly poisoned to death by the homo sapiens.

Only when we accept that our planet is dying and requires our attention to recuperate it, we can take measures to stop further destruction and initiate its healing. Naming a day in a whole year as Earth Day is merely symbolic. If you can recognize the problem, every day becomes Earth Day. Who won’t like to save his / her mother from dying?

Our mother is dying. Wanna save?

Yet, I wonder that we are just making it a formality by organizing some symbolic events of tree-planting, awareness drives, birding tours, riding bikes instead of cars, going to a nature trail etc. just to commemorate this day. But nothing significant is being done. How are we going to save our planet?

A couple of years back, over 120 countries came together to sign the Paris Agreement which is now accepted by about 200 members. So almost all of the world has agreed to mitigate the climate change and keep the rising temperature under 2 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

In principal and on papers everything looks great. But did you know that the highest impact on climate change is caused by carnism?

On this day, shouldn’t we ask?

• How many carnists are celebrating the Earth Day by vowing to keep away from consuming animal products?
• How many of us are going to avoid animal products for a month or a week or even on this day for the sake of Birthday-Earth Day?
• How many meat shops and restaurants advertised that they won’t be serving any animal product today in honour of Earth Day?
• How many governments, who signed the Paris agreement, implemented veganism in their own canteens, mess & guest houses for the sake of Earth Day?

We need to take responsibility on our own

Let’s not fall into the trap of trusting our governments to save our planet. In fact, saving our planet is in our own hands and we need to take responsibility towards our mother Earth individually. Nothing will change, if we don’t want to change ourselves.

Remember that every day is Earth Day. Don't restrict yourself to just one day a year; learn about how you can make a difference to environmental protection every single day. And you can easily do that by taking a small step of going vegan for life. Would you? Do you really care for your planet?

Here’s a small video message which was used as today’s Google doodle:

"Every single individual matters. Every single individual makes some impact on the planet, every single day. And we have a choice."
-Dr. Jane Goodall,
Jane Goodall Institute

Let’s vow to respect all beings of this planet.
Happy Earth Day!