Birdwatching has recently surged in popularity across the world, especially among younger generations. In fact, research has shown that it’s Gen Z’s second fastest growing hobby. 

Many have turned to the pastime as a way to reconnect with nature and reduce stress levels, and it has other potential health benefits as well: some studies demonstrate its potential to help slow age-related cognitive decline by acting as a brain exercise. 

Moreover, the little equipment or experience needed makes the hobby accessible to everyone — all you really need is the presence of birds. Unfortunately, their populations are declining due to a variety of issues, including habitat and environment degradation, climate change, and, more directly, plastic pollution. 

Why is Plastic Pollution Such a Big Problem? 

Birdwatching and birds themselves are not the only victims of plastic pollution. Outside of being beloved to birders, birds play an important role in many  environmental and ecological processes. 

For one, birds are significant contributors to the health of plant populations. They pollinate, fertilize, and disperse seeds across continents, which promotes plant reproduction and supports the growth of the forest and foliage that serves as habitats for other species. 

The ecological importance of birds also extends to health issues. For example, research has shown that when vulture populations decline, humans are increasingly exposed to disease-causing bacteria and pathogens. This trend occurs due to the increase in the presence of animal carcasses, which vultures would normally remove from environments. Bacteria from these carcasses can enter water systems and turn into a serious threat to human health. 

Humans also rely directly on certain species of birds for certain tasks. For example, foragers in multiple regions in Africa have relied on the Greater Honeyguide to lead them to honey, while various types of birds can provide pest-control on farms by eating common nuisance insects, like coffee borer beetles. 

So when we lose our birds, we’re not just losing their aesthetic or emotional value — we’re also losing all of the extensive good they do for us and our environment. 

The Importance of the Past

Bird populations have been threatened by human-caused events throughout history, some of which have been devastating. Oil spills are one example, killing thousands of birds with each incident. The 1969 Santa Barbara spill, for example, led to the deaths of an estimated 3,600 birds. 

Another particularly infamous case was the chemical DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) which was commonly used as a pesticide and led to a decline of bird-of-prey populations, resulting in imbalance in affected food chains due to a lack of predators. 

But while threats to birds and their habitats exist, these events have also inspired real, feasible progress towards conservation. After the 1969 oil spill, there were extensive clean-up operations and a new-found attention to ecological issues that included the eventual creation of Earth Day. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring highlighted the dangers of DDT and became one of the most influential texts in the environmental movement as well as a catalyst for the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency,

 In today’s environment, one of the biggest threats to birds is the increase of plastic pollution. Our next step should be following environmentalists  who came before us and putting together the next solution.

The Problem With Plastic

There are a number of reasons that plastic poses a large threat to birds, including entanglement, exposure to chemicals and, most especially, ingestion. In 2015, it was estimated that nearly 90% of seabirds consume plastic. By 2050, that number is projected to increase to 99%, which is virtually every seabird on the planet. 

Birds eat plastic both directly and indirectly by eating prey that has already consumed it. Plastic consumption can cause serious ailments, leading to lack of proper nutrient consumption and gastrointestinal obstruction/organ damage. Plastics can also find their way into nests and cause severe damage. Chicks are prone to entanglement, which can prove fatal due to strangulation and the infections they cause. These issues have been observed worldwide and occur in both aquatic and terrestrial birds. 

PULLQUOTE: “Given that birds in particular mistake plastic for prey, macroplastics or MPs have been found in the gastrointestinal tracts, feces, and even in feathers and other tissues or organs of several hundred avian species from freshwater, terrestrial, and marine ecosystems.” – Limin Wang et al. 

Plastics, which can take up to and over a thousand years to degrade, end up permanent fixtures of bird habitats, making exposure dangerously common. They’re also extremely widespread, with an estimated 12 billion tons of plastic waste expected to be found in the environment by 2050. 

These numbers are intimidating, but we should note that even the tiniest efforts add up over time. The easiest way to begin helping the birds we love can be as simple as saying no to a plastic bag. 

What can you do to help?

One way to start is by learning more about the effects and origins of single-use and disposable plastics. Knowing where they come from is the first step to identifying what you can do to cut down on them. Plastic water bottles, packaging, and plastic bags are especially prominent pollutants, but they’re also not too difficult to cut out of your life. 

Reusable bottles, kitchenware, and bags are great ways to reduce plastics while keeping the everyday items you need. As for the plastics already in the environment, getting involved in local clean-up efforts can help clear affected areas and boost community engagement. If there aren’t any around you, consider starting one! Every movement, no matter how small, makes a difference. 

Birdwatching is just one of the many aspects of our lives that rely on the presence of these fascinating, loveable creatures. If they’ve helped you alleviate the stress from work, find friends, or even just given you some small amount of joy, consider paying it back — it could mean saving their lives.

Check out our End Plastics campaign for more information and ways to take action, like calculating your plastic footprint or signing the Global Plastics Treaty petition. 

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Bees, butterflies, and moths are typically beloved images of what we commonly know to be pollinators. However, the insects we often look at with distaste — those like mosquitoes, wasps, and flies — are actually also important pollinators in their own right. 

Bees and the like are incredibly critical to ecosystems, providing plants and crops we rely on with the pollen they need to reproduce. However, it’s also important to shed light on the other creatures that affect our environments, ones we often try to get rid of because of their reputation. 

They do a lot more than incessantly annoy us by supporting plant reproduction through plant pollination worldwide. In honor of national Pollinator Week, here are some less appreciated pollinators and the surprising benefits they have for ecosystems around the world. 

Over-Hated Garden Dwellers 

Flies are famously disliked in households worldwide.They’re often considered a nuisance, not doing much other than buzzing around where you don’t want them to. Surprisingly, despite how we see them, it’s actually been determined that flies are the second-most important pollinators, right after bees. 

The fact is flies are necessary for the health of plant populations across the world, including crops — According to a research article published by biology researchers from the University of Exeter, they visit around 72% of global food crops, cross-pollinating between plants and ensuring reproductive success.

Flies are incredibly diverse, species and habitat wise. Hoverflies are a specific family of flies, made up of over 6,000 different species, as detailed by a 2024 University of Georgia field report. They can be found on and across various continents. These flies play a valuable role in pollination and pest control, as they frequently visit flowering plants and naturally prey on destructive pests like aphids. 

A 2019 study observed hoverfly migration in and out of England and continental Europe, reporting billions of hoverflies seasonally migrating. The massive numbers of flies leads to significant pollination across land-masses, and this redistribution of pollen supports the reproduction of plants, including popular crops like sweet peppers, strawberries and onions. 

Certain types of flies can also be major players in the creation of beloved foods like chocolate. Tiny flies known as midges are the sole pollinator of cacao trees, making them critical to the chocolate industry. Cacao flowers, which have small, intricate openings, can only be entered by midges due to their miniscule size. 

Even with midges, due to the complex nature of the plant and its reproduction process, only 10-20% of the flowers actually get pollinated. Without midges pollinating cocoa flowers, the plants would be unable to produce the seedpods used to make chocolate.

 In short: no flies, no chocolate. 

A Common Menace 

People tend to live in terror of wasps. To some, even the sight of a nest’s stalk being built is a sign to call the exterminator. Of course, this isn’t unfounded, considering that wasps are notorious for being aggressive. What’s lesser known about them, however, is their tropical family members’ prominence as specialist pollinators, that focus on pollinating a narrow variety of plant species. 

Many of these plants are important in their own right: Figs are a well-known and well-loved fruit, of which there are almost nine hundred different species. They’re more than just fruits, though. Figs actually act as a keystone species, due to the significant number of animals and insects that depend on them for sustenance year-round. A 2018 study even documented that certain species of figs can help support declining bird populations, by providing them with a reliable source of food. 

Fig wasps are a small, often overlooked species of wasp. The two native to the United States are unnoticed to the point that they have no common name, only a scientific one: Pegoscapus. Figs and Fig wasps have a mutualistic relationship, meaning that both species generally benefit from their exchanges, though a first glance might say otherwise.

When a fig’s flowers (which are actually inside the fruit) are ready to reproduce, they attract female wasps, who crawl into the fruit through a small opening— it’s so small that while entering, the wasp will lose its wings. As the wasp crawls around to lay its eggs, it spreads the pollen it collected from the previous fig it was in. The flowers can then reproduce while the wasp, done with its job, dies within the fig.

While it sounds like a morbid exchange, it allows the wasp’s eggs to grow in a safe environment where they can hatch before continuing the cycle. This relationship maintains both populations and indirectly supports other species who rely on figs. 

Not all wasp pollination requires the death of the insect, however. Other species of wasps promote pollination the same way many other pollinators, including flies, do — they feed on nectar to support their energy levels, landing on flowers and collecting pollen in the process. As they travel from plant to plant, the collected pollen is transferred between flowers, fertilizing their seeds. This is commonly known as “incidental pollination”, a process butterflies and moths also take part in. 

The World’s Most Hated Insect 

It’s a well-known fact that mosquitoes are widely hated, and not without good reason. One particular species of mosquito, Aedes aegypti, might well be one of the most dangerous insects in the world, as a past carrier of yellow fever and the Zika virus. 

However, like any other creature, there’s a large diversity of species within the mosquito family, and some can actually be beneficial to both humans and the environment. There are around 3,500 species of mosquitoes documented worldwide, and only about 3% of those species are able to transmit diseases. 

Take, for example, the elephant mosquito, or Toxorhychites rutilius, which is found across a broad range of the southeastern United States. Rather than feeding on our blood, these giant, colorful creatures prefer plant nectar, pollen, and even the larva of other mosquitoes, and as they buzz from meal to meal, they pollinate flowers along the way, collecting and transferring pollen between the plants that host the substances they feed on. 

Another type of mosquito, Aedes Communis, commonly known as a snow pool mosquito, is a critical pollinator of blunt-leaf orchids. Found across the North of the United States, Alaska, and Canada, this mosquito does feed on blood to sustain the development of its eggs, but it also commonly feeds on nectar.

 As it feeds, it collects pollen from one flower and transfers it to the stigma of another, effectively pollinating the orchids and allowing them to reproduce. Blunt-leaf orchids are also important to ecosystems — they often indicate the presence of the many protected species they grow in tandem with. 

Now, it’s important to note that the details about mosquito pollination are still being studied, and there’s not much concrete information about what their pollination patterns, preferences, and effectiveness are just yet. That being said, researchers have drawn tentative conclusions about mosquitoes being potential nocturnal pollinators, due to their observations of significant mosquito presence around flowers at nighttime, rather than during the day.

 Professor Helen J. Young conducted a study that blocked flowers from pollination during daylight and evening hours, and found that the flowers that only received nocturnal pollinators (which operate similar to mosquitoes) produced twice as many seeds.

So, while we’re still learning about mosquito pollination, it’s safe to say that they do have a purpose other than just spreading disease and generally annoying people. 

The Surprising Reality

Not all of the insects we know as “pests” are deserving of that title. Flies, wasps, and mosquitoes are just a fraction of the thousands of non-bee pollinators that exist and are essential to plants around the world. An estimated 35% of global food crops and 75% of the world’s flowering plants rely on pollinators to be able to reproduce and continue population growth. 

While some insects are certainly a threat to gardens and human health, there are many that are wrongly implicated, ones our environments would be substantially different without. We don’t have to forgive all of them, but maybe we can learn to appreciate the ones that deserve it. 

Additionally, the unfortunate truth is that pollinators of all kinds are being threatened by issues such as climate change, pesticide use, habitat loss, and disease. That’s not a fact you have to just accept, though. There’s plenty each of us can do to support our local pollinators, and a great way to start is by getting involved with National Pollinator Week. Be sure to also check out additional resources like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and our own bee conservation tool-kit. 

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Black-capped Chickadee. White-throated Sparrow. Common Loon. In 1964, at just four years old, Gordon Atkins recorded his first ever bird list. “It was a bittersweet moment,” says Atkins upon discovering his old list. “But it gave me pause to reflect on my experience as a birder — from a list of common backyard birds in the Northwoods of Canada where I grew up to leading tours all over North America.”  

Since Atkin’s first list, the skies of North America have grown quieter. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, since 1970, North America has lost nearly 3 billion wild birds, largely attributed to habitat loss driven by human-driven climate change. 

Birds are especially vulnerable during migration periods. A 2024 article in the International Journal of Avian Science states that mortality during spring migration is on average 6.3 times higher than during stationary periods. Disease, exhaustion, and food shortages at critical stopover locations (associated with extreme weather and wind conditions) drive this rate up. Climate change contributes to migration dangers as well, with the Carbon Brief database noting that 77% of extreme weather events are more likely or severe because of climate change.

Based at Camp Au Sable in Grayling, Michigan, Atkins, now 66, studies gull behavior and ecology. Extreme weather events, he says, like flash floods, droughts, intense storms, and wildfires are becoming less rare and more normal. “We’re adding energy to the system. You get hotter hots, colder colds, wetter wets, and dryer dries.” And if these big storms hit during migration or nesting seasons, he notes, they can devastate bird populations.

The ring-billed gull, Atkins’s bird of study, has been migrating up to six weeks earlier in recent years. As a result, breeding and egg incubation occur much earlier than usual, exposing eggs to freezing nighttime temperatures. For the gulls, increasingly sporadic weather events dramatically reduce hatchling survival rates. In the last six years, Atkins’s gull colony has had three years of 0% breeding success, two years of moderate success, and only one year of excellent breeding. 

But ring-billed gulls are adaptable and resilient, able to adjust to new, man-made habitats even as their old stomping grounds cave to human activity. Other birds aren’t so lucky. Long distance migrators, including songsters like warblers, tanagers, and meadowlarks, are among the most impacted and least inclined to adapt their migration timelines. False springs kill insects and interrupt fruit bearing plants — food sources these exhausted migratory birds heavily depend on. Wetlands are also drying up, leaving waterfowl with fewer habitat options and at greater risk of contracting a deadly virus in the wetlands that remain. 

Hope, eBird, and Citizen Science

Experts believe there is hope in data. Since its inception in 2002, Cornell’s citizen-science platform eBird has radically altered how scientists — and the average birder — collect and understand bird data, allowing anyone to report bird sightings.

Hobbyist birders are now part of something larger, equipping scientists with mass amounts of data critical to monitor changes in migratory patterns and population sizes. Just this past May, a Science study based on eBird data found that three quarters of bird species in North America are plummeting across their ranges.

Restore Habitats with Native Plants 

Migration is by far the most stressful time in a bird’s life — even without climate change related food insecurity and deadly weather events. If you’re a birder, keep an eye out for our avian friends. You can make your own list or sign up for a citizen science effort like eBird. 

And if you’re not much for birding, there’s still plenty to be done to aid our avian friends during their long journeys across continents and oceans. In addition to climate change, the destruction of natural habitats contributes to the severe decline in bird populations. Planting native species can help, and that’s where you come in. Support the Canopy Tree Project and help Earth Day continue to plant trees and restore natural environments around the globe — for us humans, our bird friends, and every little creature in between.

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Humans rely on bees probably the most out of all insects in the world, but not just for honey or pollination. No, they’re actually also working away in labs and even giving us parts of their very home to help humans out. 

So if all you know about bees is that they flit from flower to flower, think again. Here are some of the fascinating ways bees have helped humans even more than just making all the flowers and food bloom across the world.

The Humble Honeybee and Medicine

The sweet taste of honey is almost certainly the first thing you think of when you think of bees. But honey isn’t just food. Medical grade honey, taken from honeybees, has been developed to help treat burn wounds. It has antibacterial properties that prevent infection, and its use has proven to be effective against a type of bacteria that are resistant to up to 13 types of antibiotics. On top of that, even honey used in large amounts didn’t make the bacteria more likely to become resistant to its antibacterial properties. 

Though research is ongoing to fully understand medical grade honey’s capabilities for treating wounds, researchers are also exploring other ways bees can help us, including with their venom 

It might sound counterintuitive. Isn’t venom-anything bad for you? Well, apparently not.

In 2020 researchers found that honeybee and bumblebee venom killed cancer cells in triple-negative breast cancer, an invasive, fast-spreading, and hard-to-treat cancer. And it killed the cancer cells without harming healthy cells. 

Dr. Ciara Duffy, who headed the study, also tested a small component of honeybee venom called melittin that can be produced synthetically and found it had many of the same anti-cancer effects.

Synthetically-produced melittin means we can protect the honeybee population. It also means scientists can make it more effective as a cancer cell-killing agent by adding new components to better recognize and target cancer cells. Duffy’s team has also started testing melittin on ovarian cancer cells, which has also proven effective.

None of Your Beeswax! …Well Maybe Just a Little

It’s common knowledge that bees pollinate plants, which lets those plants produce food for us to eat. But, how much do they actually help us?

Oh, just about 30% of the world’s dietary supply. Which means every three meals a day a human eats, an entire meal can be attributed to the hard work of bees.

While other insects and animals do contribute to pollination as well, bees as a species are pulling the most weight. But it’s not just the domesticated bees living in stacks of bee boxes on the sides of fields doing this work. Studies have shown that having wild bees and honeybees interact increases the pollination efficiency of honey bees, specifically in a sunflower field. The best way to ensure that interaction is having natural habitat nearby farms so wild bees can live nearby, while still pollinating crops.

But beyond helping our food grow, and making honey from it, bees also create beeswax. It’s the substance the bees use to actually make their hives and the cells that they store honey and larvae in. For bees it serves as the building block of their home, but it also has several properties that make it useful for cosmetic purposes. 

Products like lipstick and cream use beeswax as a stiffener, which keeps the product adhered to the face better. But it also has antiseptic properties that protect the skin. It creates a thin film on the surface of skin and protects it from bacteria. This makes beeswax a good natural ingredient in cosmetic products. 

Bee Brainpower

Worker honeybees live for 15 to 38 days in the summer, and they have a lot of flowers to visit and paths to memorize in that barely two month lifespan. A bee’s brain is smaller than one cubic millimeter—a sesame seed is two to four millimeters—so researchers at Virginia Tech wanted to analyze how bees were able to keep so much knowledge in that tiny brain of theirs.

Professors Read Montague and Brian Smith put bees in a laboratory and tested how different scents, which would be flowers in the real world, sent specific signals in the bees brain as they tried to learn about a new environment. Some of the brain chemicals bees have are the same in humans, and can lead to new discoveries about how brain chemicals play into learning or brain disorders.

They’re continuing to study how chemicals like dopamine, serotonin, tyramine, and octopamine release in a bee’s brain to help them learn and possibly apply those findings to better understand how human brains learn as well. 

Busy, Busy Bees

Bees do a lot for us, even if we don’t always see it. The yellow-striped flyers have contributed to the ecosystem for generations, happily buzzing away while people collect their honey and beeswax, and now are studying every part of them to further medicine and research. But not everything about honeybees is always peachy.

Though they’re not endangered, honeybee populations have been on the decline. Exact numbers are hard to pin down, considering there are wild hives out there we don’t know about, but 2025 started with 2.63 million colonies in the U.S. and ended with an estimated loss of 50% of hives. Fortunately, they seem to be recovering this year, but it’s important to do all we can to support honeybee populations. 

One way to help bees is to make our system of agriculture more sustainable. Habitat loss contributes to wild bees population decline, so the less new farmland we have to make from their habitats, the more they can thrive both in human-kept hives and the wild. Learn how you can support sustainable practices like regenerative agriculture and keep habitats safe from further development.

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Plants and flowers have been used as a form of expression for as long as humans have been able to articulate themselves. Be it in poems, paintings, or gifts, there’s a general understanding that these living things mean something. But some of their symbolism goes much deeper than simple ‘love’ or ‘well wishes.’

Sometimes a flower actually came from a bitter-sweet Greek myth, or has been used in religious imagery for generations. Maybe a saint used a plant no bigger than a thumb to teach a country about a religion. Regardless of the biology of the plant, people will still find meaning behind the greenery that fills so much of the plant. The list of meaningful flora is long, but here are five notable ones that are steeped in myth and symbolism.

The Buddha’s Favorite Flora: A Lotus Flower

The Lotus Flower is an aquatic flower that is a common motif in religious art, particularly in symbolism of Hinduism and Buddhism. As with most symbols, the lotus flower is associated with multiple traits, some of the most prominent being purity, awakening and transformation. It’s often used in visual depictions of the Buddha, be it paint or thankgkas, which are traditional Tibetan scroll paintings that depict spiritual teachings. One of these scroll paintings that is still preserved was titled the Lotus Lama.

Unlike most thankgkas that are painted on scrolls, the Lotus Lama artist instead stitched small pieces of fabric together to depict the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Tsongkhapa in meditation. Two lotus flowers hover over his shoulders as part of the symbolic scenery. 

But the lotus flower isn’t just a key religious symbol, it’s also woven into Buddhist stories itself. The Buddhist enlightened figure Padmasambhava’s name means “Lotus-Born” as he is said to have been born from a lotus flower already fully enlightened, the highest form of realization in Buddhism.

There’s plenty of small ways the Buddha is connected to the lotus flower as well, he’s often depicted sitting in a lotus position for meditation, and some sculptures have him actually sitting on a lotus throne. This flower’s depiction has been intertwined with the Buddha’s for centuries that it’s no wonder it’s taken on similar meanings of transformation.

The Clovers and their Religious Friend, a Saint

Everyone knows two things about a four-leaf clover; it’s lucky, and it’s Irish. Technically called a shamrock—a family of plants that still doesn’t have its own scientific notation—the four-leaf variety is a 1 in 10,000 rarity most likely caused by a recessive gene trait in the plant. That rarity is primarily responsible for causing it to become associated with luck.

But the three-leafed version has its own symbolism in Irish myth. Historian Marion R. Casey said the three-leaf clover was associated with a legend that St. Patrick himself used the plant to teach Catholic doctrine of the Holy Trinity. The three leaves represented the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

As the patron saint of Ireland, St. Patrick’s use of the plant spurred it into the country’s identity. Now, the shamrock is widely recognized as a national symbol of Ireland. It’s been used in iconography for the country and even in decorations on gifts to foreign dignitaries. So despite the famous nature of the elusive, lucky four-leaf clover, the standard shamrock holds a similarly symbolic status for its country.

Lucky Bamboo and you Guessed it, Luck!

Despite its name this tall, leafy plant isn’t actually a species of bamboo at all. Native to Western Africa, the dracaena sanderiana has been adopted into the Chinese decorating philosophy of feng shui, which aims to create harmony in living spaces. The more harmony, the more luck.

People who practice feng shui believe lucky bamboo is one of the plants that enhances luck—go figure. To optimize the plant’s use in space, it should be put in the east or southeast most direction of the room. Feng shui also puts lots of emphasis on incorporating the elements of wood, fire, water, earth, and metal. A lucky bamboo plant can have all five. Wood is the bamboo itself, stones or pebbles in the container are the earth, water is what lucky bamboo grows in, the pot can be metal, and a red ribbon can be tied around the stalks to signify fire.

But the symbolism doesn’t end there, the number of stalks in a lucky bamboo plant can also hold special meaning when gifting the plant. Two stalks doubles your luck and represents love, while three stalks represent wealth, happiness, and long life. Five stalks brings luck in finance and business, while ten stalks means you wish the receiver gets everything they want. A large, 21 stalk plant is the highest amount of well wishes you could possibly give. 

Regardless of the specific type of luck, gifting any number of stalks is a sign of well wishes. Just be sure to avoid the four stalk bamboo, which is often associated with bad luck or death.

Narcissus Flower; Prettier than the Mythical Man it’s Named After

This plant’s name comes from Greek myth, and like most Grecian mythology there are countless versions of the same story recounting events differently. But across many of its retellings, specific beats remain the same to form the collective myth of Echo and Narcissus:

A nymph named Echo slights the goddess Hera, who curses Echo to only ever repeat the words of others for the rest of her life. Meanwhile, a boy named Narcissus is born and the blind seer Tiresias prophecies that Narcissus will live a long life so long as he did not know himself.

Narcissus grows into a beautiful man with many admirers, but turns all of them down. Echo eventually happens upon Narcissus in the woods and instantly falls in love with him, but as she’s only able to repeat his words back to him Narcissus rejects her. Echo flees. Some myths include the greek goddess of retribution, Nemesis, intervening in this part, but others also have Narcissus happen upon a demise all on his own.

While out on a stroll Narcissus comes across a still pool of water, and reaching down to drink from it he catches his reflection. He falls in love with it. Unable to break away from his own reflection to eat or sleep, Narcissus withers away by the pool and dies. From the spot next to his reflection, a narcissus flower blooms.

In modern day, the narcissus flower is actually a genus of flowers, its most well-known variety being the daffodil. Despite a rather somber Greek myth explaining its existence, the actual flower itself is definitely pretty, though not fall-in-love-with-it pretty.

Mistletoe

The tradition of kissing under the mistletoe has its roots in Norse mythology. The god Odin had a son named Baldur who was prophesied to die, and in an attempt to save her son, Baldur’s mother and the goddess of love, Frigg, gathered all the plants and animals and made them swear an oath that they would never harm Baldur.

All of them agreed, but Frigg had forgotten to ask the lowly mistletoe plant. Aware of this, the trickster god Loki fashioned an arrow of mistletoe and used it to kill Baldur. Luckily the gods were able to resurrect Baldur, and a now delighted Frigg declared mistletoe a symbol of love and vowed to kiss everyone who passed below it. An interesting turn of events after said plant just killed a man, but either way mistletoe has now become an inescapable part of the Christmas season.

The tradition of kissing under the mistletoes evolved over the years. For a while it was bad luck if one of the people under it refused to kiss. Another version said after each kiss a berry should be plucked from the mistletoe, and once the berries were all gone the kissing should stop. Not a bad reputation for a plant that’s technically a parasitic species.

They Matter Even Without a Myth 

If history and myth have proven anything it’s that even the simplest things like flowers and plants can be given epic origin stories, elevated to a place of religious status, or imbued with subtextual meaning for entire cultures. But while the origins of these plants’ meaning may be intangible, the plants themselves are very much real.

Extinction is a very real problem for plants as much as it is for animals. We want to keep lotus flowers and mistletoe and all the other wacky-origin story plants we have, both so we can keep telling those stories, and because preserving nature is vital.

Over 60 seed plant species went extinct between 1900 and 2018, and that dwindling biodiversity impacts an entire ecosystem of other plants and animals. One way to keep ecosystems going is to make them resilient by reinforcing the biodiversity already existing there.

Consider donating to our Canopy Tree Project, which aims to plant 60 million more trees around the world by 2030. Through dedication to preserving the plants already here, we give them more of a chance to both thrive, and create meaning for all of us.

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Giant pandas are one of the most recognizable animals in the world, but many of the most interesting things about them are far less well known. Behind the black-and-white fur is an animal with unusual genetics, strange reproductive biology, an ancient evolutionary history, and a body far stronger than its gentle image suggests. Here are 9 surprising facts about giant pandas.  

1. There are two kinds of giant pandas: the Sichuan giant panda and the Qinling giant panda of Shaanxi.

Scientists generally recognize two subspecies of giant panda: the more common Sichuan giant panda and the Qinling giant panda, which lives in the Qinling Mountains of Shaanxi. Qinling pandas are known for their somewhat browner chest and belly fur, as well as differences in skull and tooth shape.  The two panda groups have distinct genetic traits, and because the Qinling panda preserves an older genetic lineage, they are not casually crossbred.

2. Giant pandas are all nearsighted.

Their poor vision may be linked to the fact that they have long lived in dim, obstacle-filled bamboo forests, where sharp eyesight is less necessary and visual function may have gradually weakened. Exact estimates of panda nearsightedness differ, but pandas appear to see best at close range and can distinguish details especially well within about half a meter.

At the same time, pandas have highly developed senses of smell and hearing, which help compensate for their weak eyesight when finding food, detecting danger, and communicating with other pandas.

3. Panda babies are like tiny premature-looking human newborns.

A newborn giant panda cub is astonishingly small. At birth, it usually weighs only about 90 to 130 grams (roughly 3 to 5 ounces), and measures around 15 to 18 centimeters long, about the size of a stick of butter. Cubs are born pink, nearly hairless, blind, and extremely fragile. They are also very loud. Their constant crying is not just noise, it helps the mother keep track of them and avoid accidentally crushing them.

4. Giant pandas can seem to “pause” pregnancy, and females have only a very short breeding window.

This idea comes from a real biological phenomenon called delayed implantation. After fertilization, the embryo may not immediately implant in the uterus, which makes panda pregnancy hard to detect and easy to misunderstand. Female giant pandas also have only one brief fertile period each year, and that window usually lasts just 24 to 72 hours. So while people joke that pandas have babies depending on their mood, the truth is that panda reproduction is biologically complicated and tightly timed.  

5. Pandas are far stronger and more dangerous than they look.

Giant pandas may look cuddly, but they are still large bears with powerful jaws, teeth, claws, and forelimbs. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service notes that pandas have very powerful jaws and teeth for crushing bamboo, and anatomical research also suggests that giant pandas are well adapted for tree climbing.  One widely cited study of 151 carnivores ranked the giant panda fifth overall in bite force, behind only (polar bears > tigers > brown bears >lions). Studies commonly place a giant panda’s bite at around 1,300 newtons at the canines and about 1,800 newtons at the carnassial teeth. That is roughly equal to having the weight of a 130- to 180-kilogram object concentrated at one biting point

6. The panda lineage is ancient.

Giant pandas are not a recent species in evolutionary terms. Fossil and genetic evidence shows that the panda lineage goes back millions of years, making it one of the oldest surviving branches of the bear family. In China, the earliest likely references to giant pandas date back to ancient works such as the Shijing and Shangshu, placing them in the written record for over 2,500 years. They are not just modern conservation icons, they are survivors of an ancient lineage.  

7. Pandas descended from meat-eating ancestors but gradually became bamboo specialists.

Giant pandas belong to the order Carnivora, and their ancestors were meat-eating animals. Over time, however, pandas shifted toward a diet that is now about 99 percent bamboo. Research has also found that pandas lost normal function in a taste receptor associated with savory, meat-related flavors, which may help explain why meat became less appealing. Even so, their digestive system is still more like that of a carnivore than that of a true herbivore, which is one reason they must spend so much of the day eating.  

8. Giant pandas are solitary animals and need a lot of territory.

Adult pandas usually live alone and have strong territorial tendencies. Instead of constant social interaction, they communicate mainly through scent marking. According to San Diego Zoo, a panda’s home range can span several square kilometers, depending on food availability and habitat quality, depending on food availability and habitat quality. That means a single adult may need an area as large as hundreds or even thousands of soccer fields. This is one reason habitat fragmentation is such a major threat to pandas because pandas do not just need bamboo, they need enough connected forest to live and move safely.  

9. Most giant pandas really are “Cancers” or “Leos.”

Most panda cubs are born in July and August. That is because the breeding season usually takes place in spring, when females enter their short annual fertile period. As a result, panda birthdays cluster in late summer, with only a small number born outside that pattern. 

In recent years, giant pandas have moved from Endangered to Vulnerable. In China, years of habitat protection, forest restoration, and conservation work have helped panda populations recover, while also supporting the many other species that share their home.

To help restore and protect habitats around the world, support EARTHDAY.ORG’s Canopy Tree Project. Because in the end, animals cannot ask for help, but we can choose to act for them.

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The oil stank like nothing Puff had ever smelled before. Black goop coated his body, slipping beneath his feathers and soiling his white down belly. The pale-yellow whiskers crowning his head drooped under the oil. He could not move his wings. He could not even open his beak.

A trio of humans hovered over his head. Puff trembled, but could not stop their gloved hands from picking him up from the oil-slicked beach and setting him in a small red duffle bag. Just hours before, he’d been diving with the other Tufted Puffins, lining his beak with smelt and bobbing freely on the open ocean when all of a sudden, utter darkness ate up his blue-green sea. Oil and gas had boiled up to the surface after an oil rig had torn open the seabed. At least that’s what the strange buzzing contraption next to the humans went on and on about.

“January 31st, 1969. This just in. Thousands of seabirds washed ashore Santa Barbara’s white-sand beaches. Residents reported a strong stench three days prior, likely in connection with Platform A’s recent oil spill. Eye-witnesses say the birds are soaked in oil, still alive but ill and unable to move. Death tolls remain unknown. Authorities recommend taking live birds to the Santa Barbara Zoo for care.”

The radio fizzled out before continuing:

“With their pristine beaches smothered in goop, Santa Barbara locals are left wondering why. Who will be held responsible? How will the world react? Union Oil has declined to comment.”

Puff’s rescuers lay his quivering body in the back of their rust red sedan, pressed between a western grebe and a restless common loon. Snatches of the human’s conversation drifted to him from the front seats.

“Awful situation, it is, just awful. Like a giant spilled a heaping cauldron of ink all across the beach. Oh, and the sea! Ann, the sea looked like it was boiling.”

“They say some 3,500 seabirds and marine mammals have already died, from little guys like our puffin in the trunk to sea lions and dolphins. The oil drowns the birds, you know. Swipes that water-proofing right off their feathers.”

“But we can’t lose hope, Jack. They say Nixon might be out to survey the scene. And if a disaster like this catches the president’s attention, maybe our hopes for a cleaner, healthier environment can become reality.”

Puff cocked his head. A healthier environment? Would that mean cleaner waters too? Maybe even more smelt and little squid to feed on?

Later, at the Santa Barbara Zoo, a team of kind humans scrubbed Puff down and nursed him back to health. The volunteers said almost 9,000 oil-weighted birds like him had died in the spill. They also whispered about a certain environmentally-minded Senator Nelson of Wisconsin who’d traveled to survey the damage to Santa Barbara’s famed beaches. The humans believed Nelson might signal a changing attitude in their leaders. They dreamed of a world where beaches were clear, the water pristine, and the air as sweet as honey.

For months after his recovery, fear kept Puff pinned to the Santa Barbara Zoo. He was terrified of discovering the same black goop monster haunting the shores of his beloved ocean. But when he heard tell of Nelson’s visit and of the humans rallying for his and other seabirds’ cause, he felt he had to see the action himself. So, Puff, with his stubby little wings, embarked on a grand tour across the United States.

Soaring up from California and over the Rockies, Puff dropped by the University of Colorado, Boulder. He found students and faculty alike pausing their day-to-day activities to fight for the Earth—for Puff’s Earth. Green flags dotted campus and students organized teach-ins, symposiums, rap sessions, speeches, and films. Puff could hardly believe his eyes.

Across the Great Plains and over Lake Michigan, Puff stopped in Ann Arbor where students and faculty at the University of Michigan rallied under the banner “Give Earth A Chance.” Like the Coloradans, the Michiganders meant business. As pioneers of the teach-in format, Michigan’s organizers’ attracted over 50,000 attendees across 125 seminars, panels, rallies, and other events, paying special attention to ecological issues in the Great Lakes and the impact of war on the environment.

The buzz about the environment flew faster than Puff could keep up with. The humans came to call the movement Earth Day, and apparently, events spanned the entire nation. Puff even heard that activists down in Miami staged a parody Orange Bowl parade called the “Dead Orange Parade,” featuring the Statue of Liberty decked out in a gas mask.

All the commotion struck a chord in Puff’s heart. Returning to Santa Barbara later that year, he learned that volunteers from the University of California Santa Barbara had recovered 1,800 barrels of skimmed oil from his home seas. Puff swelled with pride. The future of Puff’s home seemed bright—humans and their fellow animals might still save their Mother Earth.

Like Puff, it’s important to keep our hopes and passions alive even when our world turns upside down. Whether it be fossil fuel companies polluting our seas or world leaders ignoring scientists’ pleas for swift climate action, know that you can’t and aren’t expected to control the whole world. Take a breath, recenter, and like Puff, get out there and find those little ways you can make a difference for our planet.

Join Climate Education and follow in the footsteps of the activists who grabbed the world’s attention with teach-ins after the Santa Barbara oil spill. Small changes can and will make a difference.

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Nature is full of creatures that do far more than simply survive. Many quietly perform jobs that keep ecosystems functioning. A review on biodiversity loss gathered evidence from more than 600 experiments involving over 500 kinds of organisms and found that when biodiversity is lost, living things populating the surrounding area become less efficient at using resources, growing biological matter, and breaking down and reusing nutrients.

This underscores how animals are not just interesting parts of nature, they are superheroes, each with their own special job, supporting the health and stability of the entire planet. Without their vigilant protection, entire ecosystems would be at risk of decay, as they lost their resistance to climate change, efficiency in resource usage, and improved environmental restoration. This National Superheroes Day, let’s explore some unsung champions inhabiting, and safeguarding, three vastly different layers of our Earth.

The Gardeners of Nature

In savannahs, deserts, and forests, one such heroic species moves with enormous weight but leaves life behind with almost every step. Elephants are far more than impressive giants, they are also major seed dispensers. Research describes them as “megagardeners of the forest” because they consume as many as 500 plant species and then deposit viable seeds over long distances in nutrient-rich dung.

This matters for the ecosystem’s health as seeds carried away from the parent plant are less likely to compete with it for nutrients. Additionally, distribution of a plant over a larger area decreases the chance of child plants catching parental disease. On top of that, being spread out lowers the risk of being eaten by insects and animals stalking the original area for the species, improving their survivability.

The elephants’ size, broad diet, long gut passage time, and large home range make them unusually effective at transporting seeds across landscapes in a way that smaller animals often cannot. On average, forest elephants transport seeds for 5.3 kilometers. 89% of the seeds get displaced by more than 1 kilometer from the parent plant and 10% carried further than 14 kilometers, far past the borders of the parent tree neighborhoods. These numbers show that elephants do not simply drop seeds near where they found them, they spread them across the forest, helping plants colonize new, uncharted areas, and maintain genetic diversity.

The Creepy Custodians

A very different superhero appears only after death. Vultures are often seen as ugly or ominous, yet they perform one of the most valuable jobs in nature: pollution and disease control. 

By finding and consuming dead animals quickly, they remove carcasses before they can become breeding grounds for harmful bacteria and other pathogens. This keeps the environment cleaner and lowers the risk of infectious diseases, like anthrax, spreading among humans and animals.

Vultures, being the only surviving vertebrates who are obligate scavengers, are especially efficient at disposing of remains, getting it done much faster and cleaner than other animals. Even when feral dogs populate areas devoid of vultures, they do not measure up to the birds’ standards, often being too few in numbers and leaving uneaten pieces behind.

Vultures’ work also supports cleaner water. When carcasses end up in streams and rivers, their decomposition causes a decrease in the level of dissolved oxygen and an increase of fecal-originating bacteria. Lower oxygen levels harm survivability of local fish who need it to breathe, while bacteria threaten human and animal health by causing infections, making vultures the guardians of water quality as well.

On top of that, these birds also provide indirect benefits to human communities. Their rapid cleanup of animal remains can reduce the food available to roaming scavengers such as feral dogs, which helps limit the spread of rabies among people. At the same time, Vultures save communities the time, cost, and labor that would otherwise be needed to dispose of the carcasses through burying or incineration.

The Shoreline Vanguards

While elephants strengthen the forests and vultures keep landscapes clean, corals protect life by building the structure of entire underwater cities. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), although coral reefs cover only about 1% of the planet’s oceans, they create a livable environment for at least 25% of all marine life. Rather than simply occupying an ecosystem, they create one.

But their work does not stop in the ocean, coral reefs defend land inhabitants too. NOAA explains that reef structures act as natural barriers against waves, dissipating around 97% of wave energy. This helps reduce erosion and subsequent property and life damage. The service saves nations significant amounts of resources, as calculations suggest that without coral reefs to protect our shorelines, global yearly expenses caused by storms would increase by at least $4 billion. It is estimated that countries most at risk from these natural disasters, such as Cuba, Indonesia, Malaysia, Phillipines, and Mexico, each save around $400 millions in damages annually just from being surrounded by coral reefs.

But coral reefs are important not only because they support marine life and shorelines, they also help scientists develop new medicines. Many substances found in coral reefs are currently being used to develop treatments for diseases such as arthritis, cancer, viruses, bacterial infections, and more.

Anyone Can Be a Hero

Together, these species show that protecting nature is about more than saving individual animals. Elephants, vultures, and corals each perform a different kind of environmental service, but all of them help keep the planet healthy. Their stories remind us that ecosystems depend on cooperation, and that every living thing matters in the big picture.One way you can join these heroes in their quest to protect the planet is by donating to the Canopy Tree Project. Not only would your donation share in the spirit of planet conservation, but it would also help preserve habitats of animals, helping maintain biodiversity that strengthens our ecosystem.

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Climate change can feel like an insurmountable issue, but we aren’t as alone in fighting for our planet as we think. Scientists are constantly creating new technology to slow or repair the damage our warming climate causes.

These breakthroughs can happen across disciplines, from engineering to manufacturing, and can be used in locations from space to the ocean. They might seem small on their own, but these innovations push our efforts to protect our planet forward. Here are some of the inventive ways people are fighting against climate change that you might have never suspected.

Protecting the Coral Reefs with Light and Food

As oceans warm and further damage coral reefs, a process called coral bleaching, scientists have found ways to help coral build resistance to the negative effects of warming water. Their solution? Food.

The more food that coral eats, the higher the chance it can survive rising temperatures and bleaching. Coral consumes zooplankton, a microscopic organism found in oceans. In early 2025, scientists created a tool that increases coral’s feeding opportunities, thereby helping its heat resistance.

This device, called the Underwater Zooplankton Enhancement Light Array or UZELA for short, is an autonomous underwater light that draws in nearby zooplankton for coral to eat. The study found that running the device in a location for just one hour a night increased local coral feeding rates by 10 to 50-fold, compared to areas without the device. It helped strengthen both healthy coral and already bleached corals by bringing its food closer.

These efforts are important because coral reefs are vital to keeping erosion at bay, sustaining the fishing industry, and generating tourism. The Great Barrier Reef, for instance, is home to 1,625 species of fish, and even more crustaceans, turtles, rays, and other sea creatures. 

PULLQUOTE: [“The real intent of this project is to inject new technology and energy into coral restoration success. It’s something that can be deployed strategically for high-value reefs, or projects that have already had a lot of investment in them.”] — Andrea Grotti, professor of Earth Sciences at Ohio State University

Battling Deforestation … from Space?

Losing trees affects many aspects of our planet’s health, from losing animals habitats to even contributing to climate change. Trees remove carbon dioxide from the air and since it’s a greenhouse gas that warms the earth, taking trees away limits a natural deterrent against a warming atmosphere. There are ways to fight it though, satellites for instance have long been used to monitor rainforests and identify where illegal deforestation is happening. 

However, traditional satellites can’t take pictures through clouds, which often cover rainforests. This makes it hard to track deforestation in real time, and by the time authorities can get images, sometimes the perpetrators are already gone.

But now satellites are using radio waves that can take pictures through the clouds. 

The European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission consists of two satellites orbiting the Earth. It uses Radar for Detecting Deforestation, called RADD, to capture images that are nine times more detailed than traditional satellites. It’s so specific it can detect changes on an almost tree-by-tree scale. Now, the Global Forest Watch compiles the satellite data so anyone can see data on the world’s tree coverage. Simply click on different countries to get a visual overview of tree cover, biodiversity, and the different types of forests growing around the world.

Solar Power Is Getting Cheaper and Cheaper

If there’s one surefire way to fight against fossil fuels, it’s to make renewable energy sources as cheap and practical as possible. Luckily, solar panel prices have only been dropping, and it’s all thanks to technological advancement.

As engineers improved the design of solar panels, the total cost to make one also dropped. In 1975, a single solar panel watt cost almost $130 in today’s money, while in 2024, that same watt was less than $0.30. By 2023 solar panels had grown so efficient that it only took a year for a solar panel to generate the same amount of energy that was used to create it. 

On top of that, creating solar panels themselves is also becoming more environmentally friendly. While producing aluminum for a solar panel’s frame results in a large carbon footprint, using renewable-generated electricity to power the smelters is one of several ways to decrease that carbon impact.

In the same vein, aluminum is highly recyclable, and the process uses only 5% of the energy required to make new aluminum. Not only is solar a key energy player in battling climate change, but every step of making solar panels is being carefully looked at to reduce its impact on the environment.

Fighting Fire from the Sky

There are roughly 60,000 to 80,000 wildfires each year in the United States, a number that’s stayed steady for the past four decades. Yet, in 2023 fires in the US cost over $23 million in losses, up from $18.8 million the year before. To combat wildfires, firefighters are using new technology to scope out the spreading flames.

The Fire Urgency Estimator from Ground to Orbit, or the FUEGO project, started by Berkeley physicist Carlton Pennypacker, is one of these new types of technology. It has the potential to revolutionize wildfire fighting by providing real-time data on how and where a wildfire is spreading.

FUEGO will rapidly identify wildfires and track their motion across the U.S., specifically scanning high fire-risk Southern California every 30 seconds. This gives firefighters rapid, up-to-date data on its location. Pennypacker’s team has already created a prototype of the technology, which they outfitted on spotter planes as a test run. It cross referenced data on humidity and wind speed to prove its effectiveness in battling wildfires.

PULLQUOTE: [ “The costs associated with research, development, and implementation of FUEGO would likely be paid for many times over (perhaps even in its first year of operation) through the system’s capability to detect wildfires in their incipient stages, report them to the relevant fire agencies, and provide valuable data to responding firefighting systems.”] — Carlton Pennypacker, astrophysicist at the University of California, Berkeley

There’s a long way to go, but we can all do our part

Researchers at the top of their fields are working constantly in tandem with technology to fight climate change, but there’s ways you as an individual can also help.

Getting active in organizations like EARTHDAY.ORG helps amplify your voice with like-minded individuals concerned on how to prioritize our planet’s health. On top of that, consider using our Climate Education resources to become your own expert in everyday sustainable living, since saving our planet isn’t just a job for scientists. 
Whether that’s making a composting system, learning how to plant a garden for local pollinators, or coming out for Earth Day 2026 in April, it’s also important for you to step up in whatever way you can.

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As the most popular day of the year to buy flowers, Valentine’s Day drives business into the storefronts of thousands of florists and supermarkets across the world. And the flowers themselves? Also from around the world. 

Few flowers are grown anywhere near the shop where they’re sold. Roughly 80% of all flowers sold in the US are imported, mainly from South America, and the largest worldwide supplier in 2023 was the Netherlands. This long journey creates a massive carbon footprint, by plane it can cost 1 to 1.5 kg of CO2 emissions per stem

But flowers are not the only way to show that special someone. Here are five things to gift someone this Valentine’s Day to show them you care about them, and the Earth:

Budding Love Locally 

Most flowers bought in the US burn a lot of fuel in transit to the supermarket or local florist shop. Luckily, there is a more rosey option. Locally grown flowers take far less fuel to transport, support nearby farmers, and last longer because they don’t spend a week traveling after they’re cut.

Locally grown means a florist only sells flowers grown within a 100-mile radius of their shop. By buying from local farmers, you cut down on the costly carbon footprint it takes to transport imported flowers and support the local economy. Growing your own blooms or picking wildflowers from surrounding parks are also great options. 

P.S. I Love Handmade and Digital Cards

You did it in elementary school, so why not bring this creative tradition back? Valentine’s Day is one of the most popular days to send or give a card, with around 145 million exchanged on the holiday each year. But not every piece of a paper card can be recycled, like glitter, ribbons, felt, music boxes, and foil, so most cards will end up in a landfill. If you do buy a card, be sure to remove all these extra pieces before recycling.

So instead, make a homemade gift card. Cut out hearts from paper, write a heartfelt message, or paint or draw a picture for your loved one. If you’re far away from your special someone, a digital card can be just as memorable and doesn’t contribute to landfill clutter. 

Paper Petals 

Unlike real flowers, paper flowers never wither. They’re also a perfect craft for any little ones participating in the day as a present to Mom. 

There are many different ways to make these flowers. The most common way is using tissue paper and pipe cleaners for a 3D bouquet. You can also use old egg cartons to make a flower garland, hyacinths from construction paper, or a cupcake liner lollipop flower.

These are just a few of the many crafty ways to make a more permanent bouquet for your Valentine. Anything that makes use of craft supplies or everyday recyclables is a chance to keep something out of the landfill and brighten up the room at the same time.

Potted Plants

Instead of buying a flower that’ll die within a week, give one that’ll continue to blossom longer, and multiple times. Potted plants of any kind means you can watch your love grow… literally.

But if your special person doesn’t have a green thumb, don’t worry! There are plenty of easy-to-care-for plants you can get them. A snake plant, for instance, is a large fern-like plant with deep green leaves that stick straight into the air. Just tell the recipient to not water it too much and have them put it next to a window for some sun. Some other greenery options include the leafy ZZ Plant, which tolerates low light and dry conditions, or succulents which should be placed where they get lots of light and sparsely watered.

For a flowering plant, try the Peace Lily, which likes some light and just needs its soil kept moist. A potted zinnia will give a pop of color to one’s home and should only be watered when its soil is dry. African violets are compact and just need a bright window and enough water to keep the soil damp.There really is an option for everyone!

Memories Don’t Wilt 

What do you get for someone who has everything? Something to do!

A 2023 survey shows that 92% of Americans hope for gifted experiences, compared to 77% wanting a physical gift. Though that high percentage for the physical means you still shouldn’t skip on the chocolate this Valentine’s Day, maybe instead of the bouquet of flowers, you can gift something to remember.

Tickets to a concert or a play are classics. Some kind of class, from cooking to glass blowing, can be a way to get your loved one out of their comfort zone. If you’re celebrating on a budget, try taking your sweetheart on a picnic date at a nearby park. Pack each of your favorite foods, and if you want to be sappy, cut the sandwiches in the shape of a heart — just make sure to compost the chef scraps. 

Show Love for your Partner, and the Planet

No matter who you’re celebrating this love-filled holiday with, there’s always an opportunity to speak someone’s love language while also showing your love for the earth. EARTHDAY.ORG’s love language is an act of service, and we’re proud to plant hundreds of millions of trees to show our appreciation for the planet. If service is your love language too, and you want to help us reach a billion trees planted by 2060 (that’s 34 Valentine’s Day’s away) consider donating to our Canopy Tree Project to help show the earth some extra love.

This article is available for republishing on your website, newsletter, magazine, newspaper, or blog. The accompanying imagery is cleared for use with attribution. Please ensure that the author’s name and their affiliation with EARTHDAY.ORG are credited. Kindly inform us if you republish so we can acknowledge, tag, or repost your content. You may notify us via email at fielder@earthday.org. Want more articles? Follow us on substack.

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