2013地球日：我们可以做这8件事来保护地球！

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，美国的民主党参议员盖洛德·尼尔森提议将每年的4月22日立为“地球日”。他表示自己思虑许久，想找到一种能“一劳永逸地让环境问题走进政治舞台的聚光灯下”的办法。地球日是个适合用来反思“我为保护环境到底做了些啥”的日子。以下是一些推荐可以供你采纳，可以独自一人进行也可以跟别人一起。

1. Plant trees
种树

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.
地球日距美国的植树节很近，久而久之，地球日已经差不多变成了植树日。多植树能帮助减少温室气体排放、减轻污染、保护土壤免遭腐蚀，并为生物多样化提供良好的环境。

2. Reduce, reuse and recycle all day long
减少浪费、加强回收利用

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.
少买些东西吧，尤其是那些包装过度的玩意儿。支持本地产品（无论是食物还是别的）——因为这些东西所需的运输距离短，从而能减少温室气体排放。随身带个水杯，尽量不用一次性餐具。回收利用那些日常生活用品，并为那些不常用的物品发掘新的用途。多用布袋子、回收塑料袋。

3. Rid litter
清扫垃圾

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.
清扫马路上的垃圾。很多群体会在地球日的周末集体清扫马路、高速公路以及社区马路，扫除那些自上个清扫日以来堆积成山的垃圾。很多公司会捐赠手套和垃圾袋给清洁团体和村庄，组织收集垃圾。当清洁团体收集好垃圾并将它们堆放在道路两旁后，村庄的公益组织会前来集中收集垃圾袋。这是个非常棒的社区项目，非常适合童子军、扶轮社（译者注：一个历史悠久的全球性公益组织）以及其他类似的公益团体。

4. Sing or listen to "Earth" songs
聆听或唱地球主题歌

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.
网上充斥着很多与地球日相关的歌曲。它们之中的大部分有着耳熟能详的曲调，是很好的班级活动素材，能帮助孩子们对环保问题产生兴趣。想听的话，可以去iTunes下载：搜索类似“星球”、“地球”、“濒临”、“污染”之类的关键词就行。比方说，加拿大乐队歌手Devin Townsend就有首“地球日” 的歌。