A movie on kids' efforts to save the planet shows how childhood lessons endure beyond Earth Day
For many, it goes far beyond a single day of recognition. There are organizations around us that live and breathe sustainability — dedicating their time to educate and take action to preserve and protect our surroundings and planet.
Advertisement
'You can drive around almost any town or city and see trash scattered on the sidewalks. (Earth Day) is about educating and inspiring people to take some action every day to change behaviors," said Neil Rhein, founder of Keep Massachusetts Beautiful, a group launched in 2014 with over three dozen participating towns and cities across the Bay State.
Advertisement
A changing world
Fast forward nearly 30 years since that childhood Earth Day project and I'm fortunate to work in a field closely tied to the health of our environment, especially as our atmosphere and oceans continue to change for the worse as we see more extreme weather.
It sure is changing. Human-induced global warming has driven the average temperature
Over the past decades, sea levels have increased throughout the world, including
The increase in global sea levels compared to the 1993-2008 average.
NOAA
And the data shows just how warm our planet has become compared to the century average.
A look at the global average temperature change compared to the 100-year average (1901-2001).
NOAA
'Doing something about it' with trash monsters
The good news is that year-over-year, the amount of attention given and action taken to help combat our changing Earth has increased — and many are happening right around us.
Keep Massachusetts Beautiful
Chatting with Rhein recently was eye-opening. After constantly seeing roadway litter piling up in his neighborhood, one day in 2008, he decided to organize the first litter collection journey in Mansfield, Mass. Seventeen years later, he's developed Keep Massachusetts Beautiful as a leading statewide cleanup initiative with one goal in mind — leaving his state a cleaner and greener place to live, work, and play.
'Our network of 42 local chapters blankets the state monthly and seasonally, picking up litter and recycling,' said Rhein. 'Ninety-nine percent of people are bothered by litter and trash, it comes down to civic pride, and you should do something about it.'
Keep Massachusetts Beautiful volunteers clean up near the starting line in Hopkinton a few days before the Boston Marathon.
KMB
The depth of passion to keep the Earth healthy and habitable runs deep. . One example is the Framingham chapter, where Patrick St. Pierre, a member of Keep Framingham Beautiful, is bringing the story of the Save the Earth Club to life in a film by the same name highlighting two local elementary school students' efforts to take action with their classmates to save our planet from trash and pollution.
Advertisement
'The goal is to incept the idea of saving the Earth at an early age so we don't have to reteach kids to care about their actions,' said St. Pierre. 'This short movie shows how to fight 'trash monsters' with the help of community, with a call to action for kids to start their own Save the Earth Club to help curb increasing environmental issues and climate change.'
The film is expected to come out in the fall.
Patrick St. Pierre designed the artwork for the upcoming short movie on Save to Earth Club, which was started by a pair of local elementary students trying to build awareness and take action to protect the planet.
Patrick St. Pierre
Rhode Island Clean Water Association
The Rhode Island Clean Water Association (RICWA) is a non-profit emphasizing non-polluted water. The NPO holds multiple events a year to spread awareness and take action to keep water clean for consumption and for vegetation and agricultural use. They're hosting an Earth Day clean-up toward
The New Hampshire Forest Society
I thought this group was very unique. A non-profit focused on keeping the forests of New Hampshire protected and flourishing. New Hampshire is one of the nicest wooded states across the country and the 10,000-plus members of the Forest Society are dedicated to protecting the roughly 1 million acres of forest space across the state.
Advocating for local and statewide policies, holding clean-ups, spreading information, and promoting good land use are
Advertisement
'At the end of the day, you can do a little to save a lot,' said Rhein.
Ken Mahan can be reached at
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
What to do if you find a shipwreck
You probably won't find a shipwreck—but it's possible. A fisherman recently found a one-hundred-year-old tugboat near Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and in 2023, an 8 year old with a metal detector found a 19th-century schooner off the coast of Lake Huron in Ontario, Canada. And there are more like it out there to be found—there could be up to 10,000 shipwrecks scattered among the waters of North America, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). You might be wondering: What should you do if you find a shipwreck? I was also curious, so I did some digging on the legality, safety, and ethics of discovering a historic shipwreck. In short, don't touch anything and report the wreck to your state or local government. Note that this article focuses on the US—the specific regulations will differ in other countries. You might be tempted, after finding a shipwreck, to claim it—or even just grab something from it. Don't. First, it's almost certainly not legal to take items from a shipwreck. In the United States, the Abandoned Shipwreck act of 1987 states that all shipwrecks legally belong to the state in which they're found. The only major exceptions are sunken U.S. military vessels, which belong to the military; wrecks found on federal land, which belong to the federal government; and wrecks found on Native American reservations, which belong to the specific tribe. This is true for wrecks found on land, on beaches, and in the water. Put simply, discovering a shipwreck in the United States doesn't give you any kind of legal right to salvage the wreck. Attempting to disturb a shipwreck could result in stiff penalties, including jail time and fines. But that's not the only reason to stay away. Shipwrecks are also dangerous. Any ship powered by fossil fuels probably had many gallons of fuel on board at the time of its wreck, according to NOAA. Tampering with the wreck could start a leak (if it's not leaking already), which would be dangerous for both you and the body of water it's immersed in, as well as its inhabitants. The natural corrosion of the ship itself releases pollutants into the water that you'd rather not encounter. The ship may also have been stowing dangerous materials, which in some cases could damage scuba gear or otherwise create dangerous conditions for you and your community. Military wrecks have their own obvious dangers, such as ammunition or explosives. Put simply, shipwrecks are best left to the professionals, who have training in dealing with these and other potential dangers. Shipwrecks are also the final resting places of the people who were on board during the wreck. In most cultures on Earth, including the United States, it's considered distasteful to disturb the deceased. This means shipwrecks need to be treated with respect, the same way that a graveyard or a tomb should be. So, if you find a shipwreck that you think hasn't been discovered, don't touch anything. Don't try to take anything. Leave the wreck alone and contact the proper authorities. Having said that, who are the proper authorities to get in touch with? As previously mentioned, state governments are responsible for wrecks within their borders under U.S. law. Your first point of contact should be the historic preservation office in the state where you found the shipwreck. The National Park Service has a list of State Historic Preservation Offices, complete with links to department websites. Some states have dedicated forms for reporting shipwrecks; all have email addresses and phone numbers you can use to get in touch. It's a good idea to record the GPS coordinates where you found the wreck and to provide photos if you can—this should help the agency find the wreck and determine whether it's been previously documented. The state agency will, generally, take it from there, combining historic research with on-site investigations to determine the ship's origins and ultimately work out a plan to preserve the site. The specifics vary, but generally there's a collaboration with local archaeologists, universities, and other appropriate agencies. So, if you happen to find a shipwreck, do not disturb it or attempt to salvage anything from it—it's illegal, unsafe, and potentially disrespectful to the deceased. Instead, you should contact the historic preservation office in your state.
E&E News
2 days ago
- E&E News
Atmospheric CO2 buildup broke another record in May
Climate-warming carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere broke another record last month, breaching 430 parts per million for the first time in recorded history. The Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, whose researchers track atmospheric CO2, publicly announced the findings Thursday morning. NOAA announced the findings in social media posts on X and Facebook, linking to the public data on its website. The agency also typically reveals the annual CO2 in a news release, like last year's announcement, but hadn't done so as of 12:30 p.m. ET on Thursday. Advertisement Kim Doster, NOAA's director of communications, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
New York Times
2 days ago
- New York Times
‘The Life of Chuck' Review: Don't Worry, Be Happy
It's the end of the world as we know it, or at least that's how it seems in 'The Life of Chuck.' A strange, feel-good fantasy about the end times, the movie traces a loose network of characters going about life while facing multiple personal and planetary catastrophes. When the story opens, Earth's big clock, a.k.a. life itself, seems close to running out: Cataclysmic disasters, both natural and otherwise, are raging worldwide, species are rapidly going extinct, people are checking out and the internet is about to do the same. That's bad, though given our enduring connectivity issues, it can also seem like just another day on Planet Reality. 'The Life of Chuck' is a curious movie, starting with its relatively relaxed, almost blasé attitude toward extinction of any kind. It uneasily mixes moods and tones, softens tragedies with smiles and foregrounds a title character — Chuck, an accountant with a tragic past, played as an adult by Tom Hiddleston — who has a tenuous hold on both the story and your interest. Chuck is present from the start but only comes to something like life midway through. He has a kid and is happily married, at least according to the narrator (Nick Offerman), whose dry, lightly detached voice-over winds throughout. That the narrator proves to be a more vivid presence than Chuck is another oddity, one that's presumably unintentional. Written and directed by Mike Flanagan, the movie is based on a vaporous three-part novella by Stephen King, also titled 'The Life of Chuck,' that's included in the author's 2020 collection 'If It Bleeds.' Flanagan's adaptation is scrupulously, unwisely faithful to the source material. As in King's tale, the movie unfolds in three sections in reverse chronological order. Also as in the original, Chuck first appears on a billboard that doesn't seem to be selling anything. It just features a photo of a suited Chuck at a desk smiling out at the world, a mug in one hand, a pencil in the other. '39 Great Years!,' the billboard reads. 'Thanks Chuck!' The billboard catches the eye of the movie's most fully realized character, Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the focal point of the disaster-ridden inaugural chapter. A schoolteacher whose slight connection to Chuck emerges much later, Marty is dutifully plugging away in class despite the world's looming end. 'I contain multitudes,' one of his students unpersuasively reads from the Walt Whitman poem 'Song of Myself.' Given everyone's palpable listlessness, Marty's included, T.S. Eliot's 'The Hollow Men' would probably have been too on the nose: 'This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper.' A sensitive, appealing performer, Ejiofor is a master of melancholy, and he gets the movie off to a fine start. His soft face and large, plaintive eyes naturally draw you to him, but even when they water, as directors like them to do, it's Ejiofor's talent for emotional nuance and depth that holds your gaze. That skill is particularly useful for characters as vaguely conceived as Marty, a nice, lonely guy who's still close to his ex, Felicia (Karen Gillan). There's not much to either character or their relationship, but Ejiofor fills in Marty with dabs of personality and a sense of decency that suggests that while humanity is lost, not every individual is. It's too bad the movie doesn't stick with Marty, who warms it up appreciably. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
