2012地球日：我們可以做這8件事來保護地球！
The celebration of Earth Day on April 22nd began in the United States in 1970 and was the brainchild of Senator Gaylord Nelson, who had long pondered about finding a way to "put the environment into the political "limelight" once and for all" . Earth Day is a perfect time to reflect about what you are doing to help protect the environment. There are many ways that you can celebrate alone and with others. 1970年，美國的民主党參議員蓋洛德·尼爾森提議將每年的4月22日立為「地球日」。他表示自己思慮許久，想找到一種能「一勞永逸地讓環境問題走進政治舞台的聚光燈下」的辦法。地球日是個適合用來反思「我為保護環境到底做了些啥」的日子。以下是一些推薦可以供你採納，可以獨自一人進行也可以跟別人一起。1. Plant trees種樹As the date also roughly coincides with U.S. Arbor Day, over time Earth Day has taken on the role of tree-planting. Planting trees helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, cleans pollution, secures soil in place to prevent erosion, and provides homes for a lot of biodiversity. 地球日距美國的植樹節很近，久而久之，地球日已經差不多變成了植樹日。多植樹能幫助減少溫室氣體排放、減輕污染、保護土壤免遭腐蝕，並為生物多樣化提供良好的環境。2. Reduce, reuse and recycle all day long減少浪費、加強回收利用Buy as little as possible and avoid items that come in lots of packaging. Support local growers and producers of food and products - these don"t have to travel as far and so reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Take your drink container with you, and don"t use any disposable plates or cutlery. Recycle all the things you do use for the day or find other uses for things that you no longer use. Carry a cloth bag for carrying things in and recycle your plastic bags. 少買些東西吧，尤其是那些包裝過度的玩意兒。支持本地產品（無論是食物還是別的）——因為這些東西所需的運輸距離短，從而能減少溫室氣體排放。隨身帶個水杯，盡量不用一次性餐具。回收利用那些日常生活用品，並為那些不常用的物品發掘新的用途。多用布袋子、回收塑料袋。3. Rid litter清掃垃圾Rid litter from our roadways. Many groups use the weekend of Earth Day to clear roadways, highways and neighborhood streets of litter that has accumulated since the last clean-up day. Many companies donate gloves and bags for clean-up groups and villages organize bag pick ups. Once the group has collected the trash and placed the recycled bags along the road, get the village public works department to pick the bags up. It"s a wonderful community project. Great for scout troops, rotary clubs and the like. 清掃馬路上的垃圾。很多群體會在地球日的周末集體清掃馬路、高速公路以及社區馬路，掃除那些自上個清掃日以來堆積成山的垃圾。很多公司會捐贈手套和垃圾袋給清潔團體和村莊，組織收集垃圾。當清潔團體收集好垃圾並將它們堆放在道路兩旁後，村莊的公益組織會前來集中收集垃圾袋。這是個非常棒的社區項目，非常適合童子軍、扶輪社（譯者註：一個歷史悠久的全球性公益組織）以及其他類似的公益團體。4. Sing or listen to "Earth" songs聆聽或唱地球主題歌There are many Earth Day song lyrics available on the Internet. Many follow well-known tunes. These make a fantastic classroom activity and help younger children to become interested in environmental topics. For listening, iTunes has many songs about the Earth for downloading: try searching for words such as "planet", "Earth", "endangered", "pollution" etc. One example being "Earth Day" by Devin Townsend. 網上充斥著很多與地球日相關的歌曲。它們之中的大部分有著耳熟能詳的曲調，是很好的班級活動素材，能幫助孩子們對環保問題產生興趣。想聽的話，可以去iTunes下載：搜索類似「星球」、「地球」、「瀕臨」、「污染」之類的關鍵詞就行。比方說，加拿大樂隊歌手Devin Townsend就有首「地球日」 的歌。