hype? coverage? "they"?
thoughts:
Earth Day was "kicked off" on April 22, 1970 as an environmental "teach in" and is now observed in virtually every country on the planet ... a community oriented day that allows everyone to "think and act locally", learning more about their local environment and it's global connections - water supply, quality & distribution - conservation and recycling - etc,etc,etc - providing a vehicle for the "masses" to show their concern about the planet .... our area had presentations, discussions, displays in conjunction with the first Farmers Market weekend of the season ..... I learned that there's a small alternative energy business in town that I hadn't heard of, which is meaningful to me, and the area .... large groups of volunteers did things like removing invasive species "weeds" from important habitat areas, and cleaning the flotsam of "civilization" from local beaches

the "masses" need to come to the "message", not be handed it by the news media

Bill

Here is a link that might be useful: Earth Day is every day

Good comment! Although some areas seem to be running in the wrong direction, I can also see positive changes because of this awareness. Our secondary schools have environmental courses on the curriculum now and it's putting the information and education where it needs to be, to the young people who are going to be inheriting our mess.

I think there are lots of people out there who still don't quite "get" it. There was an article in the New York Times over the weekend about a new mother who is concerned about the cleaning chemicals she uses. She's an MLM distributor now and invites her (monied) city-dwelling friends over to spread the word. So now they're all gung-ho about replacing those poisonous chemicals under their sinks with this new stuff (when, in fact, boiling water, baking soda, and essential oils can do just as well) (probably tossing the can of floor finish in the trash, too). So much for reduce and reuse.

But make some other changes? Like move to less than a five-story brownstone (in NYC)? Get rid of the SUVs? No. At least, not yet. I guess it's a start. It's also an important lesson in how people will go green if it suits them; by and large, they're not really interested in the good of the community or the planet. That might be the way to sell "green", too.

Did anyone catch Glenn Beck talking about Earth Day?

"BECK: Everybody was talking about clean air yesterday. Well, all the freaks were talking about clean air and water yesterday for Earth Day."

"BECK: How time flies. You know, it was another Earth Day over the weekend. Right? And I`m still decorating my tree. And you know what that means. It means that aging hippies and earnest college freshmen are donning their loose-fitting hemp clothing, firing up an Indigo Girls CDs, and feasting on tofu and celebration of Mother Earth. "

Well, around here everyone was talking about the Sheryl Crow toilet paper remarks. It was on all the radio stations. Some people feel she's set back the green movement by decades.

Glenn Beck is an !d!ot. And obviously does not have any kids to whom he will handle his abused little world.

In our town we had a celebration of earth day by having groups go to certain areas of town and remove all non-native invasive plants and do a clean-up as well.

The college library I work at did a big display of books for earth day and encouraged instructors to assign environmental topics for papers - we had a lot of circulation on those books.

I don't think it is just hype...but I haven't heard what Sheryl Crow says about TP...

We did a clean-up on our campus, plus had a great barbecue and lunch- picked up a lot of stuff.
Sunday night we had a great native Alaskan speaker- Larry Merculief, who spoke about growing up native and his conciousness about the natural world- very interesting how attuned to the real world he was from age 5.

To most of our society in 1970 environmental concern was a foreign concept. So any changes back then seemed revolutionary. Now a days tons of commercial products refer to their environmental safety. There are tons of environmental groups made up of ordinary citizens. It's the successful path of the "movement" that makes year to year changes now seem minimal. We've come a long way and it's a neverending road. But we've come a long way in 37 years. Tom