As my dad and I drove onto Boylston street in Boston, we could hear booming music from the Hatch Shell. I walked on the overpass and saw plenty of people sitting on blankets. I wasn’t quite familiar with what Earthfest was really about. After walking around for several hours I became acquainted with the ideas and goals presented. This is the fifteenth annual Earthfest event. Earthfest is an event to raise awareness of how serious global warming is and how to take action to minimize it. I left Earthfest feeling happy that others, too, care about stopping global warming, conserving energy and keeping our environment clean.

(And the local connection wasn’t bad either! Adam Ezra, who grew up in Wayland, played Earthfest from quarter past noon till one o’clock. Recently, they played on Wayland town beach for the ARC club — Aid for Refugees in Crisis.)

But why should we even bother to help conserve energy, and use environment- and animal- friendly products? Well, I’m pretty sure I have the answer; there’s such a thing called global warming. Global warming is the escalation of the average temperature of the Earth. Most people love warm weather; we go to the beach in the summertime, we tan, we swim. Warm weather doesn’t really seem like such a devastating thing, but it can be. We have clear and undeniable evidence that global warming is one hundred percent real. Category 4 and 5 hurricanes have just about doubled in the past thirty years, greenhouse gases are destroying the atmosphere, snow and ice are rapidly melting (some of last years dog sled competitions in Canada had to be canceled because there wasn’t enough snow), heat waves are becoming more severe, lakes are decreasing in size — I can go on for probably another page and half on the effects and causes of global warming. If we don’t do anything to stop it, our planet will become a dangerous place to live.

We should care. Our descendants will be facing severe dilemmas such as drought, deadlier diseases, an increase in animal extinction, and stronger and more frequent hurricanes and tornadoes. As a matter of fact, we are starting to experience many of these problems now. Earthfest is a wonderful event that enlightens people about some better ways of treating our environment, and how to use less energy and fewer chemicals.

I found out how some of the sponsors of the event such as Waste Management, Whole Foods Market, and The Home Depot help shrink global warming. These three companies illustrated ways that you can become more “green.” The Home Depot now sells environmentally friendly paint (with no harmful chemicals). Waste Management has recycling programs in place and encourages their customers to recycle too. Whole Foods Market gave out bags that were made from recycled products and gave out free samples of environmentally friendly soap. Did you know that most of their stores use solar panels on their roofs?

There’s much to learn for all of us on how to live “green” and how to stop negatively impacting our planet. On a personal note, some of the things my family and I do are recycle, use environmentally friendly products such as organic food and soaps, turn off lights that we aren’t currently using, avoid the use of pesticides in our yard, use fluorescent lights, and support organizations such as GREENPEACE that are working to address the problem of global warming. You can help too!

The Internet has plenty of information. Here are several useful websites:
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/
http://www.climatecrisis.net/
http://www.treehugger.com/gogreen.php