3 May 2020, ♣ Earth Day (22 Apr) and Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day (1 May)

3.5.20, Earth Day (22.4.20) and Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day (1.5.20)

Earth Day und Earth Week: Weltweite Aktionen zum Schutz unserer Umwelt, www.earthday.de/: Earth Day-Jahres-Motto 2020: StadtNatur vernetzt, klimaaktiv, lebenswert – lasst die Städte blühen!

14th International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day 2020: 1 May 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJaXiqG4ZFs

Guerrilla gardening, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_gardening#International_Sunflower_Guerrilla_Gardening_Day: “… Examples:

  • The International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day … an annual international event when guerrilla gardeners plant sunflowers in their neighborhoods, typically in public places perceived to be neglected … has taken place since 2007 … was conceived by guerrilla gardeners in Brussels … (who go by the name of The Brussels Farmers)
  • People’s Park in Berkeley, California … now a de facto public park which was formed … out of a community guerrilla gardening movement during the late 1960s which took place on land owned by the University of California … people began to convert the unused land into a park. This led to an embattled history involving community members, … university police, Governor Reagan, and the national guard … Parts of the park were … rebuilt over time … it has established itself into a permanent part of the city …” [cf. 1985-1989 Graduate studies in Berkeley, CA]

Turner JM, Isenberg AC (2020_04_17): Earth Day at 50. Editorial, Science Vol. 368, Issue 6488, pp. 215, DOI: 10.1126/science.abc1967, https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6488/215.full: “worth remembering that 50 years ago, the United States confronted a very different crisis … millions of Americans participated in Earth Day ‘teach-ins’ … galvanized Democrats and Republicans into action: … to pass a blitz of science-based policies that aimed to protect public health and the environment – including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Endangered Species Act … These laws elevated science above economics or special-interest politics … A half-century of investment in those laws has paid tremendous dividends … By the early 1980s, the Clean Air Act had extended the life of the average American by 1 year … In the half-century since Earth Day, anti-scientism has metastasized …Science is dismissed as the province of liberal elites, anti-religious in its secularism and anti-capitalist in its support for science-based regulation … Meeting challenges like the coronavirus and climate change will require policy actions that match the scale and scientific-based rigor of those from the 1970s”.