Earth Day 2020

April is Earth Month, a time set aside to focus on the importance of a healthy planet and the actions we must take to make it so. To participate as a community, we come together on April 22nd each year to celebrate Earth Day. Earth Day creates awareness about environmental issues and actionable steps to bring about positive change. This year, 2020, we celebrate Earth Day’s 50th birthday!

The first Earth Day in 1970 was a response to the realization that we had created an environmental crisis. Smog was thick at unhealthy levels, oil spills were occurring much too often and with minimal corrective action, and rivers had become so polluted they were on fire. According to EarthDay.org, on April 22, 1970 an unprecedented 10% of America’s citizens at the time—20 million—took to the streets in protest. 

Some say that Earth Day launched the modern environmental movement. In response to citizens’ cry for action, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was founded on December 2, 1970; the Clean Air Act of 1970 was established; and the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972. Throughout the decade, the EPA went on to define Air Pollution Danger Levels, set National Air Quality Standards, and create the Automobile Pollution Control and Auto Maintenance Regulations among many other beneficial oversights. Today, 50 years later, human population growth and industrial impacts on Earth’s resources persist while scientific evidence supports the critical need for global environmental protections policy, personal actions for stewardship, and maintaining or increasing protections already achieved. Fittingly, 2020’s Earth Day theme is Climate Action.

This year, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, Earth Day gatherings have gone digital.

So, while you’re staying safe by staying home, you can still participate in Earth Day’s 50th anniversary. Visit the Earth Day sites below and others for virtual ways to engage and take action. You can stay safe, help heal our priceless Earth and be a Force For Good. For more visit:

https://www.earthday.org/coronavirus-drives-digital-striking-movement/

https://www.earthday.org/earth-day-2020/

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Using solar energy to power your home can be a great way to both help fight climate change and save money by lowering your electric bill.

An energy source for decades, solar panels can be found on residential and commercial rooftops, city and county roadside signs, in stadiums and on spacecrafts. Solar panels work by taking the sun’s energy and changing it into electricity. Comprised of many individual cells typically made from silicon (a semiconductor most commonly known for its use in computers), the silicon cells, when exposed to sunlight, generate electricity in a process known as the “photovoltaic effect.”

We’ve been experimenting with the photovoltaic process for almost two centuries. The photovoltaic effect—first documented by French physicist Edmond Becquerel in 1839—is the generation of voltage and electric current in a material upon exposure to solar radiation. In most photovoltaic usages the radiation is sunlight and the devices are called solar cells. The sun is basically a nuclear reactor. It releases small bits of energy called photons. These photons then travel 93 million miles from the sun to Earth in under 9 minutes. The sun emits enough photons in one hour to generate enough power to meet current global energy requirements for an entire year. I’d say that’s a great resource.

To harness that resource for our home, a collection of solar panels are installed on the roof. The solar cells absorb the energy from the sunlight and electrons begin to flow and generate an electric current. Electrical wires capture the current from each panel and combine it with the current from the other panels. This initial current is DC, direct current. Since all of the appliances, lights and equipment in our home use AC alternating current to operate, a device called a solar inverter is used to convert the DC current to AC current. The wires then take the collected DC current to the inverter and additional wires take the AC current out of the inverter and into our electrical panel to power our home. If our home produces more power than we need, the surplus energy gets sent back to the power grid and we get credit on our bill. This process of giving power back is called Net Metering.

If you’re interested in adding solar power to your home for cleaner energy and financial benefit, it is recommended that you do some research and consider all of your options. Contacting your power company, getting quotes from multiple installers, and talking with you neighbors, especially those who have installed solar panels, are a few of the things you can do. Good luck and keep your sunny side up!

—Leslie Chew, Force For Good Technical Advisor

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Russell Westbrook: #Whynot Be a Force For Good

Born in Long Beach, California, 31-year-old Russell Westbrook is an amazing basketball player. Westbrook began to develop his game at Leuzinger High School in Lawndale, California, and went on to play for the UCLA Bruins in Los Angeles where, in his second season, he became the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year. After only two years at UCLA, Westbrook entered the NBA draft and was selected 4th overall by the Seattle Supersonics. Just six days later, the team moved to Oklahoma City and changed their name to the Thunder. After 11 seasons in Oklahoma, this All-Star now plays for the Houston Rockets.

Yes, this nine-time NBA All-Star earned the NBA Most Valuable Player Award in the 2016–17 season; he’s an eight-time All-NBA Team member; and he led the league in scoring in 2014-15 and 2016-17. And, if that’s not enough proof positive, Westbrook won back-to-back NBA All-Star Game Most Valuable Player awards in 2015, ’16 and ’17. 

But here’s the real magic of Russell Westbrook: Selflessness. Westbrook became one of only two players in NBA history to average a triple-double for a single season. (The other player was Oscar Robertson in 1962.) Sidebar for a quick sports lesson: a triple-double is when a player accumulates ten or more (a double-digit total) in three of five statistical categories (points, rebounds, assists, steals, or blocked shots) in a single game. The most common combination is points, rebounds and assists. Besides setting a record for the most triple-doubles in a season with 42, Westbrook went on to average a triple-double the following two seasons, led the league in assists, and became the first player to lead the league in points and assists in multiple seasons. He is currently second in NBA history, behind the legendary Oscar Robertson, in career triple-doubles. His ability to score points—and more importantly, to assist his fellow players to score points—is his superpower.

But Westbrook’s selflessness is not limited to the basketball court. Off the court, he has created the Why Not? Foundation. Founded in 2012, the mission of the Russell Westbrook Why Not? Foundation is “to inspire the lives of children, empower them to ask ‘Why not?’ and teach them to never give up.”

In addition to donating and raising funds, Russell Westbrook is in the community being a Force For Good, creating Russell Reading Rooms in elementary schools and hosting community Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas gift parties for the underserved, and basketball camps. He joins other forces for good to support and promote job skills for at-risk young adults, clothing donations, and children’s rehabilitation centers. And for all of Westbrook’s good work, we see him to be a hero by example, not just by celebrity. 

For more information, visit whynotfoundation.org.

—Hillary Black, Force For Good Editor