Wednesday, June 2, 2010 is Clean Air Day.
Last year on Clean Air Day, CUPE members from the National Environment Committee and some from CUPE 2626 at the University of Ottawa made video promises for the environment. Some of the promises were:
- Conserving energy to cut greenhouse gas emissions linked to electricity generation.
- Promising to stop buying bottled water to instead promote using municipal tap water. This cuts the waste and energy used to bottle water.
- Taking public transit to work.
- Taking a thermos everywhere to stop using disposable drinking containers.
- Greening CUPE meetings.
- Riding a bike to work.
The video pledges can be viewed <a href=”http://cupe.ca/environment?keywordType=4&extraKeywords=video”“>here.
All of these pledges were aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions and other harmful air pollutants to improve air quality and slow climate change.
Clean Air Day is one of the key days during Environment Week (the first week of June every year). Action on climate change and air pollution is urgently needed. Canada lags behind many other countries in the world when it comes to combating climate change. Our federal government by not aggressively tackling climate change and other environmental issues has harmed Canada’s international reputation and endangered the future well-being of all citizens and the planet.
This year, the CUPE National Environment Committee invites CUPE members across the country to share their green pledges and promises for Clean Air Day. You can make your own video, send photographs of your environmental actions, or simply send an email and tell the rest of CUPE what you have done to make the air cleaner. Promises will be shared on the CUPE National website so that the rest of CUPE can know what actions we’re taking for Clean Air Day and the environment.
Send your pledges, promises and Clean Air Day actions to Matthew Firth (staff liaison to the Environment Committee) at the CUPE National Office.
Spare the air on Clean Air Day and every day.