What is World Earth Day?

It definitely isn’t a secret that the world is facing seemingly endless global challenges and our impact on the environment is bigger than ever. Here at Scientia, we work hard to be being as socially and environmentally responsible as possible, so as April 22nd, we wanted talk about what Earth Day means and why it’s important.

What is Earth Day?

Earth Day was set up in order to raise awareness of environmental issues on a global scale, bringing attention to new environmental issues and actions as well as drawing the limelight back to existing issues that are often swept under the carpet. The purpose is to try and drive positive action as well as activating specific projects all over the world, a united call for creativity and innovation to fight the environmental crisis to the best of our ability. 

Right, so why exactly is it important?

Aside from bringing together individuals, businesses and organisations all over the world in a united goal to tackle our global challenges, it highlights how much there is still to be done.

Even now, some statistics about our Earth are mind-blowing:

• Every year, an estimated 2.2 billion tons of waste is dumped in our oceans
• In the last 170 years, we have added 2.4 trillion tons of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, half of this amount was added in the last 35 years
• If the history of the Earth is compared to a calendar year, modern humans have been around for 37 minutes and managed to use up one third of Earth’s natural resources in the last 0.2 seconds
• It is possible that 75% of our animal species may be extinct in 300 years
• We currently need 1.75 planet Earths to provide resources and absorb our waste at current consumption levels, by year 2100 we will need 3 Earths to continue living the way we do
• Plastic kills 100,000 sea mammals and countless aquatic creatures each year- it’s the oceans biggest pollutant
• This year 976 million tons of CO2 will have already been emitted into the atmosphere so far
• By 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish
• Over 100 million years of healthy life are lost every year due to air pollution
• 750 billion tons of ice is melting every year due to global warming
• It takes 24,000 litres of freshwater to produce one kilo of chocolate, its estimated we have around 20 years left until the world runs out of freshwater entirely if consumption continues at current levels

Although some of the facts might be scary, it’s definitely not all doom and gloom, for example, the need for national lockdowns across many countries due to COVID-19 led to drops in carbon monoxide emissions by up to 50% due to less car journeys and industrial activity. 

Want to know more about what we're doing? Find out here and join us in celebrating Earth Day and bringing about positive change!