Earth Day is nearly upon us. The April 22 event, now in its 45th year, is meant to help draw attention to environmental issues, but remember, there are 364 other days to care about the planet.
Things have changed in the U.S. since the first Earth Day, in 1970, when
rampant air pollution ,
burning rivers and more frequent
oil spills were major concerns. Despite the improvements here, other countries around the world still face issues like
air and
water pollution .
The threat of global climate change also looms large, as
temperature records continue to be broken and
sea level rise accelerates .
Take a look at these Instagram photos that capture the world's ongoing environmental challenges, and keep in mind to make every day Earth Day.
A bedouin mother rinses a glass from the sand before offering tea to her daughter. Today is World Water Day. Water is an important reason why humans have chosen the achingly arid stone desert of Wadi Faynan for their first settlement. When Neolithic men and women arrived 11,500 years ago, things were very different: the climate was cooler and wetter; the landscape was covered in vegetation including wild figs, legumes and cereals, and there would have been wild goats and ibex for meat. Wadi Faynan is considered by archeologist as one of the oldest sites ever found where humans made a permanent settlement, learned to farm, and changed the course of human civilization. But the tiny community drawn to water, which attracted successive waves of settlements, would eventually all but destroy the resource which made life possible. It is a pattern that's been repeated for millenia, around the world, and it now threatens us on a global scale. First people cut trees for shelter and fuel, until rains swept away the soil instead of seeping into shallow aquifers, and the springs dried up. At least as long ago as the Bronze Age, farmers began mankind's obsession with diverting water for crops to feed the growing population. Meanwhile, the moist, cool climate which encouraged the first settlement was naturally becoming drier and hotter. Today, Bedouin who survive in the valley have laid pipes down the dry stream bed to suck what is left of the spring in order to irrigate fields of tomatoes they have scratched out of the dry soil. But it's getting harder. According to local water lore, good rains now come in less than every other year. Jordan is one of the most water-scarce countries on earth, averaging just 160m3 of renewable water per person per year. #worldwaterday #jordan #middleeast #water #watershortage #jordanwatercrisis #climatechange #bedouins #desert
A photo posted by Matilde Gattoni (@matildegattoni) on Mar 22, 2015 at 12:07pm PDT
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