Taking Action on Earth Day

Every year, people all around the world come together to celebrate Earth Day. This annual event is marked by lots of different activities,  from parades to festivals to film festivals to running races. Earth Day events typically have one theme in common: the desire to show support for environmental issues and teach future generations about the need to protect our planet. The First Earth Day The very first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970. The event, which some consider to be the birth of the environmental movement, was founded by United States Senator Gaylord Nelson. Nelson chose the April date to coincide with spring while avoiding most spring break and final exams. He hoped to appeal to college and university students for what he planned as a day of environmental learning and activism. The Wisconsin Senator decided to create an Earth Day after witnessing the damage caused in  1969 by a massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. Inspired by the student anti-war movement, Nelson hoped that he could tap into the energy on school campuses to get kids to take notice of issues such as air and water pollution,  and put  environmental issues onto the national political agenda. Interestingly, Nelson had tried to put the environment on the agenda within Congress from the moment he was elected to office in 1963. But he as repeatedly told that Americans were not concerned about environmental issues. So Nelson went straight to the American people, focusing his attention on college students.   Participants from 2,000 colleges and universities, roughly 10,000 primary and secondary schools and hundreds of communities across the United States got together in their local  communities  to mark the occasion of the very first Earth Day. The event was billed as a teach-in, and event organizers focused on peaceful demonstrations that supported the environmental movement. Almost 20 million Americans filled the streets of their local communities on that first Earth Day,  demonstrating  in  support of environmental issues in rallies large and small all across the country. Events focused on  pollution, the dangers of pesticides, oil spill damage, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife. Impacts of Earth Day The first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the  Clean Air,  Clean Water, and  Endangered Species  acts. It was a gamble, Gaylord later recalled, but it worked. Earth Day is now observed in 192 countries, and celebrated by billions of people around the world. Official Earth Day activities are coordinated by the nonprofit, Earth Day Network, which is  chaired by the first Earth Day 1970 organizer, Denis Hayes. Over the years, Earth Day has grown from localized grassroots efforts to a  sophisticated network of environmental activism. Events can be found everywhere from tree planting  activities  at your local park to  online Twitter parties that share information about environmental issues. In 2011,  28 million trees were planted in Afghanistan by the Earth Day Network as part of their Plant Trees Not Bombs campaign. In 2012, more than 100,000 people rode bikes in  Beijing to raise awareness about climate change and help people learn what they could do to protect the planet. How can you get involved? The  possibilities  are endless.  Pick up trash in your neighborhood. Go to an Earth Day festival. Make a commitment to reduce your food waste or electricity use. Organize an event in your community. Plant a tree. Plant a garden. Help to organize a community garden. Visit a national park. Talk to your friends and family about environmental issues such as climate change, pesticide use, and pollution.   The best part? You dont need to wait until April 22 to celebrate Earth Day. Make every day Earth Day and help to make this planet a healthy place for all of us to enjoy.

`` Brothers Playing Catch With Sons `` By Donald Hall And...

Trevor Lee Mr. Church English III 6 March 2015 Sports The poems I choose to write about were â€Å"Fathers Playing Catch with Sons† by Donald Hall and â€Å"This is the Day† by Tim Peeler. Both of these sports poems were written in the twentieth century, and have a similar style and theme The first poem I choose, â€Å"Father Playing Catch with Sons† by Donald Hall, was written in 1984. This poem is written about a game of baseball. The scene is set in the bottom of the ninth inning. He is up to bat with the bases loaded, and his team is trailing. The first pitch thrown is a slider, and the hitter fouls it off his cup. The author describes the next pitch as an â€Å"Express Freight.† Meaning the ball came in at a high velocity with a lot of power, just as a train would. He swings, but he is just behind. The ball is popped foul. Then the poem takes a quick turn into a basketball scene. The player is standing at the line with two shots to win. The gym is quiet. He missed the first one. He bounces the ball and misses the next. His team loses, and he says he disappears and changes his name. This poem is describing the big moments in a sports, such as trying to take the game winning shot or being the last one up to bat in the bottom of the ninth inning. When in this situation everyone is counting on you to make a big play, and that is a lot of pressure.If you don’t people are mad or disappointed in you, and it is hard to hold your head high after this. That is why he said, â€Å"We lose. I

The Most Influential Thinkers Of The German Enlightenment Era

Immanuel Kant was born April 22, 1724 in Kà ¶nigsberg. Kant is considered one of the most influential thinkers of the German Enlightenment era. He could easily be labeled one of the greatest and most important Western philosophers of all time. Kant was born the fourth of nine children to Johann and Anna Kant. His father was a harness maker, and the large family lived a rather humble life. The family practiced Pietism, an 18th-century branch of the Lutheran Church. As a result of this, Kant’s early education was at Saint George’s Hospital School and then Collegium Fredericianum, a Pietist school. In 1740, Kant entered at the University of Kà ¶nigsberg where he enrolled as a theology student. Six years later, the death of Kant’s father left him without income to continue his education and forced him to leave the university. For the next ten years, Kant worked as a private tutor for wealthy families. During this time away from school, Kant published numerous papers dealing with scientific questions surrounding rationalism and empiricism. The most important being General Natural History of Theory of the Heavens, which he published in 1755. In this work, Kant talks about the origin of the solar system and concludes it was a result of gravitational connection of atoms. After his publication and returning to school to receive his doctorate of philosophy, Kant spent the next fifteen years as a lecturer and tutor for the University of Kà ¶nigsberg. Even with the work load that came withShow MoreRelatedThe Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th Century Essay1186 Words   |  5 Pages French intellectual leaders of the Enlightenment were bankers, merchants, and professional men who had education and wealth. 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An Exploration of Humour in Twelfth Night Essay Example For Students

An Exploration of Humour in Twelfth Night Essay While reading Twelfth Night, I realised that the audience would notice that there are many aspects of humour evident. Someone might think or argue that this theme is much more present Twelfth Night than other plays written by William Shakespeare, such as Romeo and Juliet the theme is that of a forbidden love. In a lot of Shakespeares plays they seem to move from chaos at the start of the play to harmony at the end of the play, Twelfth Night also follows this pattern, to a contemporary audience they may find it quite funny, but to a 21^st century audience they would just see this as a pattern. Humour, appears in different forms both in real life and in Twelfth Night. Sometimes it is in the form of verbal humour, sometimes visual and other times in forms, which cannot be categorised. Among the difficult forms to categorise (and paradoxically these can be visual or verbal) is humour, which is not always primarily funny. In Twelfth Night, there is a specific character who we would find funny by his drunken antics, he is the uncle to the fair lady Olivia and is called Sir Toby Belch, in Twelfth Night Sir Toby is a lord of misrule, in Shakespeares era in great households, at ime of festivities a servant would be allowed for say a weekend to get drunk and make a fool of himself so that everyone else in the household is entertained and this way through Tobys antics an audience would find him funny by his words and his choice of friends, we know that he likes to have a drink but he also likes excess of it: These Clothes are good enough to drink in (I iii 9-10) With drinking health to my niece These are not the last times that we see him drinking. These episodes are humorous when performed on stage as we have a visual picture of Sir Toby being quite short and rather fat. These assumptions were confirmed when I recently saw the Royal Exchanges theatres production of Twelfth Night where Toby Belch was in fact small and fat. Toby Belch can be compared to other of Shakespeares characters who is Falstaff from the play King Henry IV Part One, which I recently saw a video of. They are both very similar in their drinking, laziness and general attitude to events happening around them. There is an opposite character to Sir Toby Belch in terms of size; this is Sir Andrew Aguecheek who is slim, very tall (as Maria says) and very stupid. I think that it would appear very funny and trange to the audience (both contemporary and modern) to see both Aguecheek and Belch together. Someone could say that they are a sort of a visual oxymoronic duo, one being tall and slim and the other overweight and short. image001. gif] There is another droll part of the physical aspect, and that is towards the end of the play when we see the twins Viola and Sebastian, together and the rest of the characters on the stage surprised as well as the people watching, in seeing two identical Cesarios and Roderigos neither of whom is Cesario or Roderigo. This is perhaps an example of umour, which in its essence is neither visual nor verbal even though the visual is a vehicle for it. In Act 3, Scene 4, we see a very humorous scene where Malvolio is dressed in such a way that visually funny, this episode is very cruel trick, but Malvolio is the butt of a much more important trick in terms of its effects within the play. Hes coming, madam; but in a very strange manner. He is sure possessed, madam. (III iiii 8-9). This is because of the letter written by Olivia, which causes Malvolio to act as a fool dressing in: yellow stockings, and wished to see thee ever cross-gartered (II iiiii 136-7) .u04d59daa11c54466ab947aaba821db67 , .u04d59daa11c54466ab947aaba821db67 .postImageUrl , .u04d59daa11c54466ab947aaba821db67 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u04d59daa11c54466ab947aaba821db67 , .u04d59daa11c54466ab947aaba821db67:hover , .u04d59daa11c54466ab947aaba821db67:visited , .u04d59daa11c54466ab947aaba821db67:active { border:0!important; } .u04d59daa11c54466ab947aaba821db67 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u04d59daa11c54466ab947aaba821db67 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u04d59daa11c54466ab947aaba821db67:active , .u04d59daa11c54466ab947aaba821db67:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u04d59daa11c54466ab947aaba821db67 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u04d59daa11c54466ab947aaba821db67 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u04d59daa11c54466ab947aaba821db67 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u04d59daa11c54466ab947aaba821db67 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u04d59daa11c54466ab947aaba821db67:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u04d59daa11c54466ab947aaba821db67 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u04d59daa11c54466ab947aaba821db67 .u04d59daa11c54466ab947aaba821db67-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u04d59daa11c54466ab947aaba821db67:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Tess of the D'Urbervilles EssayI think that the audience in this case will be laughing to Malvolio because in the play he is not seen as being a good man but a bad on as his name suggests (Mal = Bad; volio = to want), the opposite of benevolent, but also for the way he is dressed, and I can say that having watched a production myself I can safely say that the audience did indeed the way Malvolio was dressed and the consequences of this joke played on him very funny, who thinks highly of himself and is self-important as we see when he reads the letter and shows his bumptiousness. So far we have mainly focused on the effect of visual humour n the stage and how it makes people laugh. Now we are going to explore the verbal humour in this play. If we talk about verbal humour then we also have to include wit; and a major wit in the play is Feste. Festes wit is evident because of the way that he answers people, like the episode when he proves Olivia and not himself to be the fool; at the end he wins showing great wit and intelligence. This example takes place in Act 1 Scene 5 Lines 63-64, where he has proved Olivia to be wrong: The more fool, Madonna, to mourn for your brothers soul being in heaven. Take away the fool, gentlemen. Here we see Feste that with witty verbal dexterity shows Olivias foolishness in mourning for nothing, because what would be the point of mourning for her brother if his soul is in heaven? In Twelfth Night there are consequences that are humorous which stem from the so-called love triangle, which is formed by Viola (Cesario), Olivia and Orsino. This situation is comical because we see that Olivia loves Cesario not knowing he is Viola, Viola loves Orsino who loves Olivia, who in due course marries Roderigo not realising not realising that not only is Roderigo not Cesario but ot Roderigo either. Happily in due course she is more than content with Sebastian. The humour is partly that the triangle exists so aesthetically because of the duality of Viola. The audience is aware but the characters are not, except of course, Viola herself. This is a case of Dramatic Irony where the audience knows more information about the characters, than the characters themselves. The audience would know very well that the situation is not true because the play itself is false, nothing of this ever happened, but the spectators will pay to watch the play because they want to have fun watching it. The amusement is in seeing Viola embarrassed in front of Olivia asking her to marry her. The question of he play being make-belief may well add to the humour when the audience reflects that not only is Cesario not Viola but that isnt Viola either, but an actor. Indeed this layering occurs even more lately when Olivia sees Sebastian as Roderigo, who she thinks is Cesario (but who is really Viola) Another comic situation caused by the disguising of Viola is when Sir Andrew wants to fight Viola and the people watching realise that both of them are not very good swordsman; Andrew because he is oo stupid and awkward and Viola because she is a woman and does not know how to fight. So considerable scope for visual humour as two incompetent fighters each believe the other can fight well. For the same reason, Shakespeare writes a funny episode; this is when Olivia first sees Cesario and falls in love at first sight. The audience would remember that she (Olivia) was supposed to mourn for seven years, but might be pleased at how readily she abandoned her foolish course when first seeing Cesario, who ironically was someone else. The reason why mourning once a day for seven years s foolish is because in Elizabethan times women usually married young (mid-teens plus) and in Olivias case after seven years she would be unfit to marry. .u7fed504c0c92cc8cb6534c8e71005cc3 , .u7fed504c0c92cc8cb6534c8e71005cc3 .postImageUrl , .u7fed504c0c92cc8cb6534c8e71005cc3 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u7fed504c0c92cc8cb6534c8e71005cc3 , .u7fed504c0c92cc8cb6534c8e71005cc3:hover , .u7fed504c0c92cc8cb6534c8e71005cc3:visited , .u7fed504c0c92cc8cb6534c8e71005cc3:active { border:0!important; } .u7fed504c0c92cc8cb6534c8e71005cc3 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u7fed504c0c92cc8cb6534c8e71005cc3 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u7fed504c0c92cc8cb6534c8e71005cc3:active , .u7fed504c0c92cc8cb6534c8e71005cc3:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u7fed504c0c92cc8cb6534c8e71005cc3 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u7fed504c0c92cc8cb6534c8e71005cc3 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u7fed504c0c92cc8cb6534c8e71005cc3 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u7fed504c0c92cc8cb6534c8e71005cc3 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u7fed504c0c92cc8cb6534c8e71005cc3:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u7fed504c0c92cc8cb6534c8e71005cc3 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u7fed504c0c92cc8cb6534c8e71005cc3 .u7fed504c0c92cc8cb6534c8e71005cc3-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u7fed504c0c92cc8cb6534c8e71005cc3:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Essay On Responsibility In An Inspector CallsIn the recent production of Twelfth Night that I saw at Manchesters Royal Exchange Theatre, there was an added piece of comedy that was added by that productions director, that is the addition of water on the stage, the floor was drenched and this added a slapstick style to the humour. Having explored Twelfth Night and its aspects of humour, we can safely say that to both a contemporary and modern audience this is a very funny play, with many sides to its humour.