Happy Wednesday! 

One of my favourite parts of traveling is getting to see a new place. Sounds simple, but I love being reminded  how beautiful this planet is, and how diverse nature can be. Tj loves cities but I am most in awe of nature. I love getting away from the city lights and seeing the stars! I've been lucky to marvel at the mountains in Chamonix and see the power of the ocean at the beaches in Australia.  We've watched stunning sunsets in Greece and seen wildlife in Banff. One of my ultimate bucket list items is to do a Safari! I'd be so excited, I don't know if I could handle seeing animals in the wild like that LOL. 

I subscribe to National Geographic magazine, and in my blog post about Toronto I wrote about how much I love going to the Nat Geo speaker sessions. I get scared when I think of the future of our planet. I try and do my part by taking public transportation, recycling, and using my own bags at the store. But for something I feel so strongly about (save the earth!) I could definitely be doing more.

For example, when starting to write this post I was getting Earth Day confused with Earth Hour, and I was planning on shutting everything off on Saturday night and reading by candle light (hey I might still do that). Oops.

Earth Day this year is this Sunday April 22. I thought I'd flag that Earth Day was coming up, because sometimes there are things like this that I would like to participate in or be aware of and then I miss out.

The Earth Day campaign this year is to End Plastic Pollution. Here are some facts I got directly  from their Plastic Pollution Primer:

Oceans:

• Did you know that around the globe there are five massive patches of marine plastic? - There's one between California and Hawaii that is the size of the state of Texas! 
• If nothing changes by 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish (by weight)
• Animals who eat plastic often starve because the can't digest it. Plastic fills their stomachs and prevents them from eating real food

Microplastics:

• Plastic never fully breaks down - the pieces get smaller and smaller. 
• Those tiny particles called microplastics are now present in oceans, waterways, soil and even in the food we eat 
• Once plastic enters the bloodstream of an organism it will never be processed out - the plastic and the toxins it has absorbed bioaccumulate as they travel up the food chain

Health:

• Plastics containing DHEP and BPA are potentially harmful to human hormones and reproductive systems
• When heated in microwaves, these chemicals leach out into the food they contain
• Many correlations between levels of some of these chemicals and increased risk of adult onset diabetes, cancer, obesity, resistance to chemotherapy 

Some tips:

• Stop using straws
• Select produce without plastic packaging
• Purchase innovative products created from recovered ocean or environmental plastics
• Learn how to recycle properly
• Get a reusable water bottle
• Use reusable bags anytime you go shopping

On another note, If you want to see some really beautiful nature photos of BC and Alberta, check out my cousin Justin's work - he is so talented!

Or if you want to read a fiction novel that touches on the effects of overpopulation, read the Dan Brown book Inferno. It's another Robert Langdon book (think Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons)

Have a great day :)