Earth Day Extravaganza

On this Earth Day Eve, "eco," "enviro," and "green" have become common parlance in almost everyone's vocabulary. Pick up almost any magazine this month - my personal favorites are the Discover Magazine issue and this week's New York Time's Magazine - and you can read about the latest environmental news and find easy ways to become more eco-active. One of my favorite new how-to resources is National Geographic's, Green Guide, which is a quarterly publication dedicated to "consuming wisely." You can even subscribe to the full magazine online - yup, that's definitely green.

Perhaps a bit too enthusiastic

Of course, Tuesday, April 22nd is Earth Day, and I admit that Earth Day festivities make me kind of giddy because of the many opportunities to raise awareness, take some action, and have a good time. Yes, I fall into the category of another new environmental buzzword - eco-geek.

However, you do not need to be "eco-anything" in order to join the Earth Day fun. Here are five easy ways to get involved:

1. Visit the Earth Day Website to locate events, get informed, and find ways to take action. Be sure to join the Earth Day Network campaign tomorrow in which thousands of people (you!) will call their representatives and senators and ask them to enact fair climate change legislation.
2. Plant a tree. If you live in the NYC area, visit Million Trees for more info about how to enjoy more greenery and clean air pronto!
3. Check out Earth911 for "Eight Ways to Green Your Earth Day," or the Green Guide's "Earth Day Tips 2008." For the record, these two articles offer a total of 15 tips. Challenge yourself to try out at least 5 suggestions for the rest of the year. Let us know how it goes...
4. Watch TV - Check out The Discovery Network's new Planet Green, or The Sundance Channel's The Green. Thanks to one of my readers, who turned me on to the Planet Green show, Wasted. The show's first stop? A fraternity house, but not for the reasons you might think. Definitely a must-see.
5. Talk to your friends tomorrow about what you, and by association they, can do about climate change.

World AIDS Day

The theme for both the 2007 and 2008 World AIDS Day is leadership. According to the World AIDS campaign, "leadership" was chosen because "significant advances in the response to HIV have been achieved when there is strong and committed leadership. [This] leadership must be demonstrated at every level to get ahead of the disease - in families, in communities, in countries and internationally." The two leaders highlighted below were in their twenties when they founded their organizations and will be featured in Ten Ways to Change the World in Your Twenties. See how you can be a leader in your community and beyond by visiting their websites.

Sekolo Projects was founded by Elizabeth Robinson, who spends much of her year in Namibia, and her organization works to both prevent HIV infection through education and to support those who are living with HIV/AIDS. Elizabeth works closely with the Namibian Ministry of Education to train teachers and young people all over the country.

The Ubuntu Fund was founded by Jacob Lief while he was still in college, and it has since grown into an organization which reaches over 40,000 children with its health and educational services. Their Mpilo-Lwazi (Health-Knowledge) Initiative, is "a comprehensive community health program that empowers at-risk children and youth to confront HIV/AIDS openly and develop the knowledge, skills and resources to secure healthy lives."

amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS research, is a good resource for facts about HIV/AIDS. You can also search for HIV/AIDS resources and organizations by state and country. Many provide educational resources, support, and testing.

Step it Up Tomorrow!

Want to help change the world tomorrow? November 3rd, 2007, is Step It Up's second national day of action. The organization's goal is to "empower the grassroots climate movement to take action locally by calling for national change." Step it Up has helped to organize rallies throughout the country to raise awareness about global warming and to initiate policy changes at both a local and national level. Visit their website to find an event near you.

Of the 18 presidential candidates invited to events tomorrow, 8 will be attending along with 78 members of Congress. The presidential candidates attending are Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson.

Step it Up was founded by Bill McKibben, author of Fight Global Warming Now: The Handbook for Taking Action in Your Community, but most of the team members are in their twenties. Step it Up is working with the 1 Sky Initiative, which has come up with a clear plan for "avoiding the worst effects of global warming and creating a clean energy economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty." The three priorities of the plan are:


GREEN JOBS NOW
5 MILLION GREEN JOBS CONSERVING 20% OF OUR
ENERGY BY 2015

CUT CARBON 80% BY 2050
FREEZE CLIMATE POLLUTION LEVELS NOW AND CUT AT
LEAST 80% BY 2050 AND 30% BY 2020

NO NEW COAL
A MORATORIUM ON NEW COAL-FIRED POWER PLANTS

Saturday's events will encourage our legislators to make these priorities their priorities too. They will also be great places to network with other like-minded individuals, and to send a message to Congress that we are concerned about climate change. Your attendance will also demonstrate your commitment to taking action both on Tuesday at the ballot box, and on presidential election day a year from now.

Ten Ways is also a friend and ally of Step it Up. For the complete list of friends and allies, click here.

Chimp Greetings, The Wave, and An Inconvenient Truth: Remixed

Back Row Seats. Who could say no?

On July 7th, my husband Steve and I headed out to the Meadowlands to see the New York (or more accurately New Jersey, which many of the performers and presenters -most notably Bon Jovi and Zach Braff, writer and director of Garden State- pointed out) Live Earth concert at Giants Stadium. An estimated 65,000 people showed up along with us on the second Saturday in July. The purpose of the concerts was to launch a movement to address the global climate crisis. More than 10 million people watched the concerts live or on television. Eight concerts took place in New York, London, Johannesburg, Rio De Janeiro, Shanghai, Tokyo, Sydney, and Hamburg. While the concerts served as a giant launch party for the cause, this is just the beginning of a global movement to help repair and sustain a climate in crisis. The Live Earth website offers many tangible ideas for both reducing one's personal footprint and encouraging others to do the same.

While my husband and I were pretty much as far back as you could get while still being in Giants Stadium, we were grateful to be able to see all of the performances and speeches in person. Our seats also gave us a good vantage point for checking out the rest of the crowd from around the world.

Knew the words to every Kelly Clarkson Song...Best fan ever

Some of the highlights included performances by Bon Jovi, Alicia Keys, Roger Waters, and John Mayer. My four favorite moments were Melissa Etheridge's performance of music and words (here is the link to the first part - be sure to check out the second part on youtube as well), Jane Goodall's speech complete with two chimp greeting calls, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s speech about what we can do to promote effective and sustainable environmental policys, and the audience-generated wave.

While many of the other moments mentioned above were broadcast internationally, the wave was one of the most moving moments of the night. It began as a spontaneous rumble somewhere on one of the lower tiers of the stadium and turned into a musical movement of its own, as each section waited like an instrument in an orchestra to stand up and cheer at the appropriate time. The wave traveled through the stadium several times, picking up volume and synchronicity with each pass. It was a profound representation of what can happen when thousands of people make a collective decision to work together. While the moment passed as soon as Cameron Diaz came out to introduce The Police, we were all left with the knowledge that no matter what differences exist between 65,000 people, we all have the power to work together to shape the future of the home we all share.