Earth Day Events

Tomorrow is Earth Day! It was started in 1970 to stop environmental abuse. Today, we recognize these same struggles. So I've put together a list of Earth Day happenings in Austin. I encourage everyone to do a little something to say "Thanks" to mother nature. If you don't have much time do something small -- spread some wildflowers, wash your bird bath or simply sit in the middle of your lawn. Just enjoy the Earth :]

Documentary screening of an Inconvenient Truth
Where: Howson Branch Library 2500 Exposition
When: Tomorrow, 6:30 p.m.

University of Texas Earth Day
Where: all locations on UT campus
When: Tomorrow 10 am-3pm

Library Arts & Crafts
Make a craft out of recycled paper and check out a book to further your environmental knowledge
Where: Carver, Faulk Central, Milwood, St. John, Spicewood Springs, University Branch Libraries
When: 2:00 - 5:00 p.m.

9th Annual Spring Nature Quest
The best birding and all-round nature festival in Central Texas
Click here for more information
When: Tuesday, April 22nd through Sunday, April 27

Jack Hanna Presentation
Naturalist, adventurer and director of the Columbus Zoo speaks
Where: Texas Union Ballroom
When: Tomorrow at 7 pm

Cap Metro Green Day
They willl be promoting the environmental benefits of riding the bus and using reusable bags. Bus riders that bring 5 plastic bags for recycling will receive a cool reusable bag. Volunteers are needed to accept plastic bags for recycling and hand out free reusable bags.
Or if you want to participate go to:
Where: Tech Ridge Park & Ride; North Lamar Transit Center; Oak Hill Park & Ride; Northwest Park & Ride; Pavilion Park & Ride; Leander Park & Ride; 7th at Pleasant Valley Bus Stop
When: Tomorrow 5 am- 8 am

Faith Based Lecture from Mayor Wynn
Mayor Will Wynn speaks about the Austin Climate Protection Plan followed by a conversation on faith-based responses to environmental issues.
Where: Central Christian Church 1110 Guadalupe
When: Tomorrow at 7 pm

Texas Outdoors Woman Network Meeting
meet other women who enjoy the outdoors
Where: Terrazas Library 1105 E. Cesar Chavez
When: Tomorrow 6-8 pm and every fourth tuesday after that

Adopt a Capital Metro Bus Stop
Cap Metro will let you landscape the bus stop yourself to reflect your neighborhood. They can even provide with gardening tools!
Call 512-369-7759 for more information

Coats For Cubs
donate real fur to be used as bedding for orphaned or injured wildlife
Where: Buffalo Exchange 2904 Guadalupe
When: Ends tomorrow

Outdoor Hatha Yoga
Where: on the docks overlooking the pond behind the Dougherty Arts Center
When: Mon-Fri 6-7 pm; Sat-Sun 11am-noon.

Have fun out there! Get green!

Environmental Poem

In my creative writing class, I read fellow peer Steven Montanez's poem and knew right away I had to share it with the viewers of my blog. It's an environmental poem that focuses more on the terror and repercussions of global warming, urbanization and destruction of natural resources. It is full of frightening imagery that might just scare you into recycling. Take a look.

The End Before the End by Steven Montanez

Sip Sip Sip
Straw draws empty juice box slurps.
Pump Pump Pump
Wells drain dry and fish flop to a suffocating death of fresh air.
Bleed Bleed Bleed
Bullet wounds from rounds of mortar and shrapnel carve carcasses into desert sands.
Burn, Burn, Burn
Forests bare as an ocean is of trees.
Blink, Blink, Blink
Open your eyes to a forest washed up on shore, cemented over by a sky-scraping citadel urban continent super machine.
Grind Grind Grind
Gears of repentance, sorrow in greasy lubricated greed churning turbines.
Run Run Run
Monsters are coming. Out of the woods? No, woods are no longer scary.
SShh
Silence lurks, uneasy, queasy creeping up on you like a slow moving car following you down a street of tucked in houses sleeping under the faint glow of the moon through the ominous overcast thick as smoke stacks from coal scorching industrial cast-iron.
Help Help Help
Babies’ cries sets off fire alarms and wake death.
Please Please Please
Come home, the phone rings relentless,
Fires blaze fierce outside, faucets turn, there is no water.
Carry the world’s babies to the front door, a tree limbs split,
Gash open roofs like the crash of God’s ax.
Steam rises off the floor, sizzles, carbon dioxide sneaks in through holes in the house.
Cold Cold Cold
Temperature plummets like a skydiver with a grand piano on his back.
Shiver, quiver in the corner, curl the blanket unfurl, unravel
Acidic gravel pushes up through square black and white kitchen floor tiles,
Skin like frost bite ran under scolding water.
Quick Quick Quick
Think fast as clouds collapse heavy with nuclear man-made elements,
Inflamed chunks of sun soar through the opaque atmosphere,
Ice caps crumble like stale bread,
Gigantic gaseous Saturn sits upon the heart of the Atlantic afraid to drown.
Whales flung from the furious sea atop of suburban backyard tear drop pools,
Radiation eats the red sky as it digests into blustery force-pull twisting tornados,
Sweep up debris left along edges of earthquake faults filled in with molten lava.
The part of a movie where the action slows to a freeze and melancholy music is played,
The credits roll…

Copyrights to Steven Montanez. Please do not use without permission.