Ohio State has been celebrating Earth Day since 1970 and this year marks the 50th Anniversary. A zoom event was hosted by Nicole Jackson and Josh Knights to commemorate. Jeff Sharp, the Director of the School of Environment and Natural Resources, kicked off the event with his remarks. He shared that on Earth Day is important to celebrate, inspire, restore our planet all together. At the first Earth Day in 1970 there was a river walk along the Olentangy river with incredible speakers, including John Glenn. Since then, there have been many efforts to perverse and remove invasive species from the Olentangy river on Earth Day.

The first speaker for the event was Dr. Bart Elmore who is an environmental historian and a Core Faculty Member of Sustainability Institute here at the Ohio State University. He believes the most important part of Earth Day is humans acknowledging our relationship with our environment. If we don’t recognize the ways nature can shift and transform our lives, we will be in trouble. Additionally, if we don’t act quickly address problems we are facing, we will also be in trouble. Currently, the COVID-19 pandemic is helping us think about this ideal. We are imbedded in our ecosystem and need to respect that. In a way, 1970 had a similar societal climate that we are in today. In 1970, the United States was in the midst of the Cold War, Martin Luther King Jr. had recently been assassinated and then John F. Kennedy was assassinated too. Citizens were in a time of unrest, as are we.

However, on April 22nd, 1970, 20 million people came out, 20% of the population at the time, to mobilize to preserve the planet. These people came from all political ideologies and backgrounds to celebrate the first Earth Day. April 22nd was chosen as the date because students would back from spring break and it would be during the school week. The scale of change these people enacted and how they improved our environment are significant.

The zoom ended with hearing from the research work by students which was powerful because it shows that even people my age can make a huge difference for the future of our world. This was then followed by a special announcement that OSU will reduce 55% of carbon emission by 2030 which exceeds the previous goal by a landslide! This will be done through improving building efficiency and diversifying energy sources. My biggest takeaway was that we need to take action to combat environmental issues all the time not just when it is convenient

This Infectious Disease Town Hall was highly engaging and informative regarding the current COVID-19 Pandemic. It was interesting to hear the perspective of Dr. Oglesbee, the Director of the OSU Infectious Diseases Institute. He briefly talked about how here in Ohio the school, gyms, restaurants, and store closures are paying off. We also talked about how the Ohio Department of Health and Governor DeWine had already been closely working together on issues like the opioid crisis. This established relationship played a key role in the aggressive actions were taken to combat this disease in our state. Since the beginning of this pandemic, Dr. Amy Acton has wanted to lean in and get ahead of it because she knew it was going to reach our state regardless. She has been pushing the notion that staying in social isolation is your social duty, which has resonated with many Ohioans and is impacting their actions in a positive manner.

Additionally, the absence of national policy and the variation in community response to this pandemic was discussed in this town hall. Experts are concerned about the recovery from COVID-19 because they want to make sure that people know that once we hit the peak it does not mean life can go back to complete normalcy. They are worried that some communities will be quick to revoke the social distancing regulations. Whereas, communities should take it more slow and follow the data more closely, to prevent a second surge. Many experts believe that here in Ohio we are getting close to the peak which would be great because our healthcare system would be able to take on the COVID-19 cases without being overwhelmed. However, no one can be certain if we are nearing the peak or not.

Overall, Dr. Acton did a great job of bridging the gap between health departments and government, which is not always the case in states. It was also noted that the College of Public Health at OSU has been a huge player  in combating this crisis in Ohio. As a Public Health major, I am very proud of the work being done by our college. Ohio is not always a leader in health areas, for example we are far behind in the opioid epidemic. However, our state’s response to this pandemic has been impressive.