Grab your tickets now for the Green Curbside Hop, a socially distanced treasure hunt through the streets of Maplewood in search of delectable treats from a variety of Green Dining Alliance restaurants. Participants will also receive a gift bag full of items from St. Louis Earth Day Festival vendors (including reusable metal straws, wildflower seeds, and much more). Participating restaurants include Bolyard’s, Foundation Grounds, Kakao Chocolate, Living Room, Pie Oh My!, Schlafly Bottleworks, The Blue Duck, and The Post. We have worked hard to provide a connection to the Festival experience in a fun and safe way that supports the St. Louis sustainability community. You can purchase tickets and learn more about the Green Curbside Hop here.

Subaru gives back by sponsoring three socially-distanced volunteer cleanups around the St. Louis region for Earth Day’s Half-Birthday. Disposable gloves and bags will be provided, and each volunteer will receive a Festival gift bag. Masks required! Registration required click here.

Connect with us for the Virtual Earth Day Half-Birthday Festival, an afternoon of environmental thought leaders and activists addressing the impacts of climate change and what you can do about it.

Ecowomanist and The Great Cosmic Mother: Drawing the connections between earth justice and social justice are imperative if we seek to respond ethically to climate change.  The ideology of domination, which fuels our patriarchal, capitalistic and white supremacist culture, is the same force threatening our planet and the lives of women and people of color.  Ecowomanist theology has labeled this assault upon the environment and upon black women’s bodies as sin.  During this session, participants will explore the presence of the Goddess throughout time and around the world, reflect on the religious, cultural and archaeological sources that reveal the feminine underpinnings of humanity’s heritage, challenge conventional narratives about the role and place of women, especially women of color, and work together to co-create practices that support our sexual and spiritual liberation. Lorren Z. Buck, a native of St. Louis and Executive Director and Minister of  InPower Institute, has dedicated her life to positively influencing others so that they recognize their own agency and reach the height, depth and breadth of their destined potential. Lorren’s commitment to this work arises from lessons she has learned in her life. She is a theological companion, spiritual teacher and ordained minister driven to use her power to empower others.

What may happen to the climate this century, and what we can do about it: We are conducting an unprecedented experiment on our planet through our emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. While we expect the planet to warm substantially this century unless we rapidly reduce emissions, there is still a wide range of estimates of just how much the planet will warm and what we would need to do to avoid dangerous outcomes to both society and the natural world. This talk will walk through the three big factors that determine how much the Earth will warm: our emissions of CO2, how sensitive the climate is to CO2, and how the ability of the land and ocean to remove CO2 from the atmosphere may change as the Earth warms. We will also discuss what actions are needed to bend down the curve of future emissions to meet internationally agreed-upon climate targets. Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist and energy systems analyst whose research focuses on observational temperature records, climate models, and mitigation technologies.

Our River Conversations: Honoring the Great Rivers: The Mississippi and Missouri rivers have shaped the character and culture of our region in immeasurable ways. Since spring 2020 the Missouri Historical Society has offered a series of Our River Conversations that explore the relationship between our community and the natural environment. These programs will culminate in a Global Freshwater Summit in April 2021, which will bring together leaders from around the world to consider the rivers’ rights; the efforts to recover and restore these habitats; and personal and civic relationships to riverways. Join us for this installment of Our River Conversations to get a better understanding of freshwater biomes and to take a look at the road ahead to the Global Freshwater Summit. David Lobbig, Curator of Environmental Life at the Missouri History Museum and Myra Jackson, the global lead for the 2021 Global Freshwaters Summit in St. Louis.

Community and the Climate Crisis – A Youth Leader’s Perspective: Humanity has two choices before us: utter overwhelm and the associated mental health crises that attend overwhelm – depression and debilitating anxiety – or stepping up, and leaning into, real action to address how we engage with and impact our environment and the planet. Marlow Baines’s experience as a youth leader is that our ability to take the first step, towards tangible and life giving solutions, is the most powerful. And that first step requires strong support – it requires community. Through the lens of a youth leader’s perspective, Marlow will share how critically important it is to know yourself and connect meaningfully with your personal community. This makes all the difference if we are to tackle the climate crisis. By using her personal experience, research, art, and understanding, Marlow will take you on a journey towards understanding yourself in intimate relationship with the earth, through the very experience of our bodies as matter (latin: mother; material; earth), literally one with the Earth. While this shift in perception is complex, the shift to a more just, sustainable, regenerative and equitable planet may be closer than we think. Marlow Baines, Youth Director with Earth Guardians. As a young person involved the youth climate movement, Marlow has grown up with a painful awareness of the worsening climate crisis. Her earliest experience of the impacts of climate change came during the “Thousand Year Floods” along the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains in 2013. By using her personal experience, research, art, and understanding, Marlow will take you on a journey towards understanding yourself in intimate relationship with the earth, through the very experience of our bodies as matter (latin: mother; material; earth), literally one with the Earth.

In addition, there will be St. Louis Earth Day Festival vendor and exhibitor video highlights, updated Experience Areas, a Scavenger Hunt and more – all online!

This will ALL be on our Virtual Programs page with updated information coming soon!