Protect this precious resource. Never idle your car!
It’s a day to celebrate our beautiful planet! Enjoy some time outside it’s a day to think about the future and what we can do better. I think we need to concentrate better on keeping our air and water clean. We have elected officials that don’t care about our water or our air.
What difference can we each make for clean air and clean water this next year? Some things we can do: Buy less stuff, keep working to lessen your plastic use, drive less and walk or bike more, plant native plants in your yard, clean storm drains, and pick up after your pets.
Celebrate our beautiful earth by walking instead of driving today!
“Plastic is not in harmony with nature. What if we built a world where polluting people and the planet was never part of the design?” Plastic Pollution Coalition
Happy Tax Day in the United States! Why is it important that we pay taxes? I’m not for wasteful spending, but we need to elect people that line up with our values and do not want to take away our rights.
The progress to clean energy is hopeful in a world where it is difficult to be hopeful. The demand for electricity is soaring, and data centers are imposing an enormous load on our communities for energy. Unfortunately, some of our elected officials are pushing various types of burning as clean energy. They want to include the burning of garbage as a form of clean energy. Burning in any form from your backyard fires to burning garbage is NOT clean energy.
Today is the International Day of Clean Energy!
Today, let’s think positive and celebrate what is good and getting better!
Today, January 26th, is International Day of Clean Energy. Clean energy refers to electricity generated from sources such as solar, wind, geothermal and hydro that emit little to no greenhouse gas emissions.
The World Resources Institute has summarized the key statistics when it comes to clean energy in this article. The article highlights some positive news such as:
how clean energy is creating the majority of new electricity capacity
Investment in green energy is higher than fossil fuels
Growth in clean energy jobs
There are still challenges to overcome in the industry including distribution of investment and length of time to bring a project from ideation to production. But there is a lot of momentum behind green energy and it will be interesting to see how 2026 shapes up for it.
This is the coolest newsletter. I hope you will subscribe.
The Daily Difference Newsletter
Join the Daily Difference, a newsletter to help everyone around the world in taking action and making a significant positive impact. It’s not too late. The earth needs passionate people like you to spread the word and create meaningful change.
Taking action to heal the planet doesn’t need to be overwhelming. It doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to happen. Take a moment today and be a difference […]
The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species is a report on the health of the world’s biodiversity. It is a comprehensive source of information […]
Negative climate stories in the United States often make the headlines – cancelling wind farm construction, accelerating oil and gas drilling, rolling back regulations on greenhouse gas emissions and air […]
In Canada, and in many other countries around the world, it is often Indigenous people leading the way in sustainability and stewardship of nature. The Heiltsuk Nation, on British Columbia, […]
In the United Kingdom, companies who make packaging are now having to pay as the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) has started its enforcement stage. What is EPR? It is based […]
Mihir Rao, an 18-year-old from Alberta, Canada, is helping other young people to learn how to influence decision-makers. Rao, who is also a winner of the 2025 I-SEA Youth Climate […]
This is from the Story of Stuff. I hope you will give it some thought and make thoughtful purchases for the holidays and all year. “This time of year, the pressure to buy more — and waste more — is everywhere. Black Friday doorbusters, holiday flash sales, limited-time offers: overconsumption during the holidays isn’t an accident. It’s by design.
And the consequences are massive. Americans generate 25% more waste between Thanksgiving and New Year’s — an extra one million tons of trash every week. From impulse purchases tossed by January, to mountains of packaging, the holiday season has become a pipeline of extraction, production, shipping, and disposal.
What we rarely see are the impacts hidden upstream. Most of a product’s environmental footprint happens long before it reaches your door — through rapid mining of raw materials, energy-intensive manufacturing, and global shipping emissions that fuel the climate crisis.
Fast fashion hauls and holiday overbuying only accelerate the damage. Every second, a garbage truck’s worth of clothing is landfilled or burned. Electronics, toys, gadgets, and seasonal “stuff” flood into toxic e-waste dumps around the world.” Story of Stuff
Trying to be more climate friendly with gift giving this year? This holiday gifting guide will help you get in the spirit while saving you money and deepening the meaningfulness of your holiday season.
We all need to examine the amount of plastic we purchase, and figure how we can reduce the plastic we are exposed to and disperse into our environment.
Plastic is harming our health and our environment.
By Mary Koseth and Katelynn Rolfes
From the Minnesota Reformer
Microplastics have become a significant environmental concern across the world due to their widespread presence in various ecosystems, potential harm to wildlife and marine life, and the uncertainty surrounding their long-term effects on human health.
This summer, concerned citizens across Minnesota worked with staff from Environment Minnesota Research & Policy Center to test 40 Minnesota lakes for microplastics.
When we analyzed the water samples the results were clear: No Minnesota lake is safe from microplastics.
The report presents the test results, from the northern coast of Lake Superior to the wouthwest corner Minnesota, and includes recommendations to tackle the problem. In our citizen-science research project, the 40 samples were filtered using a funnel, flask and filters which had a pore size of 0.45 microns. The goal was to capture any tiny bits of plastic that were tough to spot with only our eyes. The types of plastic we searched for were microfibers, films, fragments and microbeads. We found all of these types save for microbeads, commonly found in beauty products prior to their banning in 2015.
The results of this survey should set off alarm bells for Minnesotans who love our lakes. Minnesota’s waterways are a source of peace for people, a critical habitat for wildlife, and part of our state’s identity.
Our report underscores that microplastic pollution is not an “over there” problem. It’s a “right here” problem that none of us can afford to ignore. But fortunately for us, this isn’t a hopeless situation, and there are many ways we can take action. As individuals, as community members, as whole nations, we can uphold human and environmental health and justice with our creative ideas and bold visions. Everyone has something to offer. When it comes to microplastic pollution, it’s all hands on deck.
The report outlines a broad range of various ways to tackle the problem. These include fighting fast fashion and excess textile waste, and changing Minnesota law to allow local governments to restrict single-use plastics like plastic bags.
We need to take a lot of steps to protect our lakes and health from microplastic pollution, but to start, we need to move away from single use plastics. Nothing we use for a few minutes should be able to pollute our environment for hundreds of years.
I wanted to share an invite to Zero Waste Fest on Saturday, October 11 at Burroughs Community School in Minneapolis. It’s a free, all-day community event with panels, food, music, kid’s activities, and lots of hands-on ways to get involved in building a future without waste. Zero Waste Fest — MN Zero Waste Coalition
The day runs from 10am to 4pm and includes:
Inspiring panels on:
Building a Zero Waste Future in Minnesota
Plastic is a Justice Issue: Fighting Pollution from Production to Disposal
From Throwaway to Reuse: Reclaiming Culture, Creating Systems
Tabling from organizations around MN supporting zero waste
Clothing swaps and mending
Food, art, and music!
It’s free and open to everyone. I’d love for you to join us and help spread the word!
Every year the countries of the world produce more plastic, and there is no end in sight. Production. of plastic keeps growing.
The list below is composed by the Plastic Pollution Coalition. Let’s work every day to reduce our consumption of plastic. Never use plastic utensils, plastic bags or straws
Plastic never goes away. It doesn’t break down; it only breaks up into smaller and smaller pieces. These microplastics and nanoplastics are harmful and are everywhere now, including in our bodies.
Plastic pollutes the environment, wildlife, and people.
Plastic is not safe. Plastic leaches toxic chemicals and sheds plastic particles at all stages of its existence.
Plastic especially harms communities living near petrochemical and plastic infrastructure.
The more plastic companies make and we use, the more we contribute to pollution and climate change.
Plastic was not designed to be recycled, and most plastic does not get recycled in the way we’ve been led by industry to believe.
To solve the plastic pollution crisis, industries must stop producing so much plastic. Instead of single-use plastics, we need to use nontoxic reuse and refill systems and regenerative materials.
Taking action on an individual level, using less plastic, and demanding policy action to hold producers accountable can help support the systemic changes to shift away from society’s reliance on plastics.
My yard is at peak. Unfortunately, it is also in a drought. Some places are challenged with flooding, but it is dry in my neighborhood. Native plants don’t need chemicals, and they adapt to wet and dry weather extremes
I don’t water, and hope for rain.
Native plants attract the bees’ birds and butterflies. The monarch butterflies and the hummingbirds are thrilled with these native flowers in my yard
Health4earth 