Earth Day 2011: A Billion Acts of Green®

In recognition of the power of millions of individual actions, Earth Day 2011 will be organized around A Billion Acts of Green®: Personal, organizational and corporate pledges to live and act sustainably. At over 45 million actions to date, A Billion Acts of Green® campaign – the largest environmental service campaign in the world – is steadily building commitments by individuals, corporations, and governments in honor of Earth Day. A Billion Acts of Green® inspires and rewards both simple individual acts and larger organizational initiatives that further the goal of measurably reducing carbon emissions and supporting sustainability. The goal is to register one billion actions in advance of the Earth Summit in Rio in 2012. A Billion Acts of Green® website quantifies acts of green through an easy-to-use online registration tool. A Billion Acts of Green® demonstrates the kind of environmental impact that can be made when millions of people, corporations and organizations make commitments, both small and large, to better their environment.

Happy Earth Day!

Earth Day was founded in 1970 by Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, who proposed the first nationwide environmental gathering "to shake up the political establishment and force this issue onto the national agenda. " "It was a gamble," he recalls, "but it worked."

On April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums in support of a healthy, sustainable environment. Denis Hayes, the national coordinator, and his youthful staff organized massive coast-to-coast rallies to raise awareness about oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife.

Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, city slickers and farmers, tycoons and labor leaders. The first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species acts.

As the millennium approached, Hayes agreed to spearhead another campaign, this time focused on global warming and a push for clean energy. Earth Day 2000 combined the big-picture feistiness of the first Earth Day with the international grassroots activism of Earth Day 1990. For 2000, Earth Day had the Internet to help link activists around the world. By the time April 22 rolled around, 5,000 environmental groups around the world were on board, reaching out to hundreds of millions of people in a record 184 countries. 

Celebrate Earth Day 2009 by finding simple ways you can go green.  Ride your bike to work, recycle, reduce waste by watching out for excessive packaging, bring your own reusable cloth bags with you to the grocery store instead of using more paper or plastic, insulate your pipes and water heater, fix leaky faucets, turn off the lights when you leave a room, use the power-save feature on your computer so it powers down after a period of inactivity, donate your old clothes for someone else to reuse, what other ways can you think of?

For more information on how you can celebrate Earth Day, visit the EPA's website at http://www.epa.gov/earthday

Green TV programming planned for Earth Day

Several broadcasting networks, including Fox Broadcasting, NBC and Nickelodeon, have announced green-themed TV program scheduling in honor of Earth Day, April 22.

Fox Broadcasting plans to launch specially themed TV shows, on-air graphics and instructional segments about being more green, kicking off on April 19 through to April 22.  Called “Green It. Mean It”, Fox is committed to reducing the network’s impact on the world’s climate and becoming carbon neutral by 2010.

NBC celebrates Earth Week April 19-26, starting with the “Miss USA” show and will air more than 150 hours of green-themed programming across NBCU’s 40 on-air and digital brands, including a four-part MSNBC series called Future Earth. Lauren Zalaznick, president of NBCU women and lifestyle entertainment networks, told Media Daily News that NBC Universal has saved $2 million last year by going green.

On Earth Day, Nickelodeon will have environmentally-themed episodes of hit shows including The Wonder Pets, Olivia, Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, iCarly, and Yo Gabba Gabba! Nickelodeon will air vignettes of real kids taking action to improve the environment, and Nickelodeon, NOGGIN, and The N will all power down for 60 seconds at 9:00 p.m.  In addition, Nickelodeon will unveil The Big Green Help - a grants program to support schools and local organizations with sustainability projects. Applications will be accepted online from April 22 to Dec. 31, 2009.