Welcome everybody to Midday Magazine for this Thursday, April 17, 2025.
Have your host James here and we're joined right now by our great friend Anna Mitchell Natural Resource Educator
with UW Medicine Division of Extension.
Anna, good to have you with us. How you been?
Oh, been well. Good to be here.
Good, good. I'm very good to hear and great topics today.
We're going to dive into Arbor Day and Earth Day.
Things that people know, but I don't know that we ever really do a deep dive into these.
Maybe when we're kids in school, but that information was lost by eighth grade.
You know, so kind of diving back into this is fun.
And I just going over the notes, I thought that you have stuff here that I don't remember
ever hearing.
So I really appreciate the deep dive into this topic today.
Yeah, so as James said, we're going to dig deeper into Arbor Day and Earth Day, which
are two upcoming holidays that we get to celebrate.
And I just wanted to give a little bit of history about Arbor Day and Earth Day and ironically
enough, like I don't remember hearing a lot about this stuff growing up either.
I remember, because it happened when I first moved here to Rapids, and I was at Washington
School for Arbor Day, we got the plan to treat.
And I'd never done anything like that before.
And for me as a city kid, this was wild to me.
I remember raising my hand right away and digging the hole and everything.
And the rest of the class is kind of like, okay, you know, this is a big deal.
But that's about the only memory I really have of either of these topics, really.
Yeah, yeah.
So we'll dive right into Arbor Day then.
So Arbor Day, it's a national holiday that inspires people to plant, nurture, and celebrate
trees.
I think this is going to sound funny to some listeners.
But Arbor Day was actually first celebrated and created in Nebraska of all places.
It was the idea of Jay Sterling-Morton, who was the secretary of the Nebraska Territory.
He had an enthusiasm for trees, just advocated a lot for civic entities and just people within
the community to plant trees.
And his idea really took off because early pioneers in the Nebraska Territory noticed
the lack of trees.
And they would see, you know, dust storms and a lot of other issues from not having enough
trees around.
So like I said, Jay Sterling-Morton had the idea for the first Arbor Day.
And during the first Arbor Day celebration, he offered prizes to any counties or individuals
that planted the most numbers of trees on their property.
And it's actually believed that more than one million trees were planted in Nebraska
on the first Arbor Day.
Wow.
What a legacy.
Yeah.
Wow.
That is incredible.
Yeah.
And the first Arbor Day took place on April 10th of 1872.
And then by 1874, the Nebraska Governor recognized it and proclaimed it as an actual holiday
for the state.
And then more, I think by 1920, yeah, by 1920 more than 45 states and territories celebrated
Arbor Day.
That's amazing.
Yeah.
And not only when you think of the history, you know, from then to now and the education,
the information, the attention that has been brought to this subject, the amount of
trees that have been planted throughout this time.
Yeah.
I mentioned my grade school doing that and everything.
We weren't alone, of course, thousands of grade schools around the country doing this
kind of thing.
Yeah.
And all of this and not just once, but decade after decade, this has been going on.
I don't know if there are many holidays, you can say that it made this kind of impact
on our world.
Yeah.
I agree.
I don't think so.
And I tried to find like a number of how many trees are estimated to be planted every
Arbor Day.
And I couldn't even find that number.
But I would estimate that it's probably millions.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which is just, there's no words.
No.
So for the interview, trees are important.
Yep.
They really go a long way.
I mean, it's such an impactful holiday and it's one that we kind of normalized.
We've kind of just take, oh, Arbor Day.
In fact, sometimes it's a punchline when you're talking about holidays of like, oh, yeah,
and then there's Arbor Day or something like that.
But I really love the opportunity of really taking a moment and appreciating what this
day means and the history of it.
God, I'm a lover of history.
And I didn't know much a lot of what you shared there.
That's interesting.
It's actually the Arbor Day Foundation, I believe, is what it's called.
Has a lot of the information about the history of Arbor Day and it's the resource I kind
of used to gather more of this information.
Also great resources on that website on how you can celebrate Arbor Day in your area.
And then I also dug into the Wisconsin DNR's website.
So in Wisconsin, Arbor Day is recognized and is celebrated, actually, Governor Evers
this year, dedicated April 25th to Arbor Day.
It's the last Friday in April.
And then all of next week is dedicated as Forest Appreciation Week as well.
So I mean, Wisconsin has a deep, deep, and rich history with forestry and forest products.
So as folks who live in Wisconsin, I think it's really valuable just to take a second and
recognize the value of this holiday to our state, to our state's history and just take
a moment to celebrate it.
You can make the argument.
It's not from a more important to take that moment.
And not only with some of the environmental factors we have or anything like that, but
just in the sense of so much of this state depends on those trees, whether it's the ag industry
or it's tourism or a number of other different things.
Just taking a moment to appreciate things like this in life and there's no downside to that.
Nice note.
I appreciate that.
I want to dive into Earth Day with you a little bit too and talk about the history of this
great day.
Yes.
So Earth Day actually has really deep rootings here in Wisconsin too, which I should have
known but did not.
So Earth Day's mission is to diversify, educate, and activate the environmental movement.
Basically, it's a day to bring awareness to our impact on the environment, educate
ourselves about what topics are really current right now to our environment.
How can I make a better impact?
So in the decades leading up to Earth Day, industrial factory would not regulate.
There was a lot of air and water pollution and a lot of folks did not know or recognize
the impact of that industrial pollution.
And then there was a book written by Rachel Carson in 1962 called Silent Spring that really
focused on the effects of DDT.
But it brought more awareness to our impact on the environment and how that can have actual
health effects on not only us, but wildlife.
So there was kind of the shift in culture about, you know, gearing more towards being
aware of our impacts on the environment.
And there was a Wisconsin senator, Gaylord Nelson, who saw this shift in, you know, our
culture about more public awareness.
And he, you know, there was a couple of really catastrophic environmental environmental
catastrophes that happened that really sparked Senator Gaylord Nelson to create, I guess,
the first Earth Day.
And his initial thoughts were that he, it would be like a college teach in like it would
be more geared towards college students taking action towards and bringing awareness to
just advocating for the environment.
Well, it really expanded from there.
So Gaylord Nelson, he had, I think it's 82 different folks helping him out throughout
the country to kind of spread the word about this Earth Day and they coined it.
And it took huge popularity within the media.
So the first Earth Day was actually celebrated on April 22nd of 1970 and it inspired more
than 20 million Americans, which was roughly 10% of the US population at that time to take
to the streets, parks, auditoriums, whatnot and demonstrate against the impact of industrial
development and pollution.
That's incredible.
Yeah.
I mean, just just one senator.
And both of these days when we're talking about this and the grassroots effort that really
created these, I think people are taking it in, they're blown away by it.
Now remember everybody, there's no social media back then.
There's no, there's not even, you know, a lot of, for some of this, not even TV or even
radio for some of this.
So this spreads truly grassroots, truly through word of mouth and people caring, people wanting,
people feeling like this matters.
This is something important, truly amazing when you think about that part of it too.
And not to take anything from something going viral nowadays or anything like that.
But this is so amazing when you think about that part of it.
And that shows I think the importance of it that they saw early on and to this day.
Yeah.
I think that celebrated to this day, like you had said.
And in fact, the first Earth Day, it achieved rare political alignment.
Not just between Democrat and Republican, but it was between classes.
Like classes within, within our culture, it was between rich, poor, farmer, inner city.
Like it was a combination, really, genuinely bipartisan effort.
And it actually led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency,
which is the EPA.
And then it also led to the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, which are acts in agencies
within our government that really help us protect our land, our water, our air, our natural
resources in general.
Anna, you, I don't know if the, of all the things we've talked about in the years we've
been doing this.
I don't know if this has really come up.
I'm a big sports guy.
And I'm a real homer.
Yeah.
I root for my home team.
I love rootin' for my home team.
As a little kid, one of the things that I noticed was the Olympics.
And while all the Olympics, oh, we're all rooting for the same team.
Yeah, it's kind of cool.
We're all rooting USA, USA, all that.
And I love that part of it on the largest scale of that are planet.
Yeah.
A little bit of a homer here.
I think Earth is the greatest planet.
I'm not going to lie, but I'm not going to hold away on that one.
And I'd like to keep it around.
Yeah.
I'd like to keep it around.
Not for me.
You know, I don't know how much longer I got, but I know that there are some kids coming
and I got nephews and I got my kids having kids and these things and stuff that I think
it'd be pretty cool to have this planet around a lot longer for.
All of the things we're talking about, that is the end goal, that is the end game.
We don't plant trees for us to see them grow.
We plant for others too.
Yeah, yeah.
And I mean, yeah, it's one day, it's, you know, Arbor Day is one day, Earth Day is one
day.
You know, it's two days that we get to maybe set aside a little bit of time to really
consider our impact not only on Earth, but what are the effects on the future generations
that are coming?
Right?
Can we make this a better place for them?
And you know, we say one day and it's not asking a lot of time, a lot of energy or bandwidth
or anything like that.
And you've heard Anna give you details of the impact one day can make.
The amount of trees that were planted, the amount of awareness that is created or nonprofits
that receive funding or something like that because of a donation or what have you.
They just come about because of the awareness of these days.
Yeah, I mean, Wisconsin DNR, I think it's for their fourth grade classes.
Teachers can come together and fill out our request form to the Forestry Department and
Wisconsin DNR and get free trees for every single fourth grader in their class that they
can go plant wherever, you know, I did not know that.
That is awesome.
Well, shut up to the DNR and all the teachers out there doing that.
That's really cool.
As we're touching on this, Anna, can we get a little bit more into why people should
care about Arbor Day and Earth thing?
Yeah, I mean, for Arbor Day, I mean, I would really hope that folks know how valuable
trees are.
They sort of multiple beneficial purposes to us and to wildlife around us.
Their vital habitat for wildlife, they stabilize soil and prevent erosion, which is really,
you know, here in Central Wisconsin, sometimes we do see dust storms here.
And if we can plant a couple more trees to help reduce that, great.
Trees are also really valuable to us.
In fact, four people are kept breathing every year due to the average CO2.
A tree gives off.
You may think, oh, that's only four people in the world, right?
That's still cool.
No, and I forgive me.
Would you mind repeating that one more time?
I want to make sure that really gets through to people.
We talk all the time about, oh, trees give us oxygen.
The actual detail of that, I think, is even more mind-blowing and even more impact.
Yeah.
Four people are kept breathing for a year due to the average CO2 a tree gives off.
That's amazing.
Four people for 365 days a year.
That's incredible.
That's incredible.
It's incredible.
It's one tree.
One tree doing that.
Yeah.
And then actually, 25 to 50% is how much a homeowner would save annually on their air
condition and cost if they planted large trees near their homes.
Right.
There is a group of people out there that we may not have gotten their complete attention
until right there.
That's definitely way too much.
You want to save on that AC bill?
Plant some trees.
That's a good idea.
It's a good idea.
And that's just even speaking about our everyday and such.
What about Earth Day, really focusing on that a little bit?
Yeah.
Earth Day, it gives us an opportunity, like I said, to reflect on, learn about environmental
concerns in the way that we can protect our shared world.
So just a couple of facts and figures that I wanted to bring attention.
So more than half of life on Earth lives underground.
More than half of life on Earth, 59% lives underground.
And 59% of all species live in this soil, which makes it the most biodiverse habitat
on Earth.
So why do I bring this up?
Because we can help protect and enhance our soil and recognize our impacts on Earth Day.
So how can you protect and enhance your soil?
Well, reduce your soil disturbance.
Maybe plant native plants.
Keep them there.
When you're planting native plants, you're not just benefiting the things above ground.
We talk so much about pollinators too, but there's so many benefits to below this soil.
And that's just one topic that you can think about on Earth Day.
I know we hear this a lot, save the turtles, reduce your plastic use.
And it is so true.
So plastic pollution is a huge environmental concern.
So much so that 50% of plastic only gets used once, and it's them thrown away.
And only 9% of plastic that has ever been produced globally will be recycled.
That's incredible.
Yeah.
It's a really alarming step.
I mean, it is.
And we hear people harp on it all the time, reduce your plastic use, reduce your plastic use.
And it can feel overwhelming to make that transition.
And it's still overwhelming for me.
I'm not 100% plastic free.
Like it's almost nearly impossible to do that in this world.
But there are really small and simple changes that you can make that have a huge impact,
such as like use reusable grocery bags.
I mean, I'm sure we all have either a little grocery bags filled with other plastic grocery
bags that we use throughout our house, you know, you're always throwing those silly things
away.
And if you can just make that switch to reusable grocery bags, you're having a greater
impact than you can even understand.
And then switch to using water bottles instead of single plastic water bottles that you
can buy in a case that Walmart or the grocery store.
Use a use a water bottle.
Maybe a little bit helps on most anything we're talking about, especially this one.
There was a time where, oh, I'm never going to be able to get this recycling thing down.
I'm never going to be able to remember to recycle this.
I got to look at the bottom for a number.
Oh, we'll never, in a society, we'll never do that.
Here we are in 2025 and we don't even think twice about it.
We do it all the time.
There was a time when seatbelts, oh, I'm never going to remember to put my seatbelt on.
We've proven time and time again as a society that we can get better at things.
We can learn and grow as a society together, we do this stuff.
This one is big as it feels.
And I appreciate the way you touch these on these topics.
You're so in tune with the community and with people in this.
And you really come to it from that angle and I appreciate that.
And I want to piggyback on that because with these things that I'm bringing up, because
it can seem overwhelming sometimes.
As close as you get to defeat on this one, we need you to rise up and you need you to
really be like, that's the time to be that much more, get a fire under you and realize
that even if it's just your house that's doing something, that's one house doing this,
every little bit really does help and make a difference.
It totally does.
I mean, just the simplest little things can for generations to come have a huge impact
to.
And such interesting stats, especially that 59% of all species living in soil, I've never
heard that before.
It's amazing.
I love talking.
As we're wrapping up here, what are some ways to celebrate these holidays?
Yeah.
So I mean, for Arbor Day, it's in the name, Arbor Trees.
If you could plant a tree, I mean, there's programs out there where you can get trees.
You can go to your local nursery.
You can get a tree.
If you're going to plant a tree, I highly encourage you to look into what tree would be best for
your area based on your soil, sunlight, et cetera, and then follow the planting instructions.
If you do not have the means to plant a tree, I would just encourage you to get out into
a natural area, take a walk by the stream, take a walk in the woods.
Just appreciate the trees around you and reflect on how they're benefiting you.
That's a great one.
All of that is a great idea, and especially that last one, it's a great way to, if anything
to wrap up the day with, I think.
And then there are other ways to celebrate Earth Day as well.
Yeah.
These can be pretty simple too.
You talked about trying to reduce your plastic use and being more mindful of your impact
on the soil.
But if you are on a walk, pick up some trash, throw it away, recycle it, we just talked
about it.
You know, we just talked about it.
I said switch to reusable shopping bags.
If you have, or if you can, walk to work on Earth Day, just something simple.
And again, because while these things may not seem like, oh, how is this going to impact
the world?
Well, very few people can cure polio and do something that really, literally, impacts
the whole world.
But every one of us can do something in our neck of the woods.
And if we do it, and our neighbor does it, and the person next to it does it, look at
what happens.
Look at that chain of events that can take place.
And keeping all of them in mind that all these things we're talking about, and Anna's
done a great job of telling you different ways to celebrate and highlight these different
holidays.
But one of the things that I wanted to make sure we touched on, oh, two things.
And when you're doing this stuff, get the kids involved.
Yes.
Yes.
The brains are sponges.
The more they see you doing these things, the more it's going to impact them, and then
they care about them as adults.
Yeah.
Build those habits, young.
Yes.
And I wanted to make sure we got this in, Anna, the oldest known tree.
I know we're reminding a little back, but I love the, I'm a tree guy, so I love this
one.
If you don't mind touching it.
Yes.
The known tree is a bristle cone pine, located in California.
And it's estimated to be about 4,700 years old.
And he goes by the name, or they go by the name, Methuselah.
Oh.
Yeah.
You got to get to me every time.
I heard that when I was out there.
Yeah.
And we, I never got a chance to go hunt it down or find it there.
You can't.
No.
They won't let it in the location being known.
I didn't know that before.
My buddy Will tells me this, and I'm already like getting in the car like, I got to see
this.
I want to go see the red woods.
And I want to see this.
And we're driving around for a while, and he's like, Hey, man, by the way, you can't find
that tree.
Oh, yeah.
It's such a cool story.
It is so cool.
You're very welcome, James.
This is always one of our favorite half an hour, Anna.
We appreciate the time and effort that you put into this, these topics and sharing them
with us.
If people do have follow up questions, would like to know more, how can they reach you?
Yep.
You can stop in at the extension office in Wood County, or you can email me at anna.m.james
at whiskwisc.edu.
And remember, Arbor Day, Earth Day, while we'll be celebrating on these days, you can celebrate
these holidays every day.
And that's one of the cool things about them, I think.
That's a lot of fun.
That's why.
Really fun conversation.
Thanks again, Anna.
We'll talk again, Rose.
Yep.
You're so welcome.
I want to encourage people to bookmark the webpage extension.wisc.edu, keep up to all the amazing
things that our friends at extension are up to extension.wisc.edu.
Be sure to follow them on social media as well, share their posts on your page, you just
never know who might see it otherwise.
And they got a great newsletter.
Want you to sign up for that as well at extension.wisc.edu.
We'll be back with more Midday magazine right here at 975 FM, WFHR.
