Living Car Free - Happy Earth Day!

I've been around since before the first Earth Day, and I know we've made some good progress in all these years.

Of course, we also have a long way to go. I would say that the biggest challenges right now are global warming and helping the developing world to find ways to progress without destroying our shared environment.

Thanks to all of you who live your lives with our planet in mind. It's great that you care, and together we really do make a difference. I'm glad that I've gotten to know you all through this forum.

Happy Earth Day. I hope we can all think about global warming and sharing with the developing world.

For right now, I think the best way to celebrate is to have a nice bike ride.

Happy Earth Day. I hope we can all think about global warming and sharing with the developing world.

For right now, I think the best way to celebrate is to have a nice bike ride.
+1 Just got back from my grocery store run...all of 3 miles round trip:p I was going out for a longer right but I am still beat from a brutal week at work. So I will go putter in the garden instead.

Aaron:)

I spent most of Earth Day preparing for our Ride of Silence in May. That wasn't too bad. Today's task was make sure of our route. That meant I had to ride every inch. :) Its all along and over the Arkansas River. Very pretty.

Yesterday I celebrated Earth Day by helping out with the Arkansas Earth Day Festival in front of the Clinton Library. I was with the Bicycle Advocacy of Central Arkansas encouraging people to ride bicycles.

Happy Earth Day. I hope we can all think about global warming and sharing with the developing world.

For right now, I think the best way to celebrate is to have a nice bike ride.

I did, biked to Church, was a nice service,too.

I spent most of Earth Day preparing for our Ride of Silence in May. That wasn't too bad. Today's task was make sure of our route. That meant I had to ride every inch. :) Its all along and over the Arkansas River. Very pretty.

Yesterday I celebrated Earth Day by helping out with the Arkansas Earth Day Festival in front of the Clinton Library. I was with the Bicycle Advocacy of Central Arkansas encouraging people to ride bicycles.

What's the Ride of Silence?

What's the Ride of Silence?
I believe they have one (http://www.rideofsilence.org/main.php) in Seattle.

What was the big issue that the first earth day was all about?

What was the big issue that the first earth day was all about?

This is what I found.


How the First Earth Day Came About

By Senator Gaylord Nelson, Founder of Earth Day

What was the purpose of Earth Day? How did it start? These are the questions I am most frequently asked.

Actually, the idea for Earth Day evolved over a period of seven years starting in 1962. For several years, it had been troubling me that the state of our environment was simply a non-issue in the politics of the country. Finally, in November 1962, an idea occurred to me that was, I thought, a virtual cinch to put the environment into the political "limelight" once and for all. The idea was to persuade President Kennedy to give visibility to this issue by going on a national conservation tour. I flew to Washington to discuss the proposal with Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who liked the idea. So did the President. The President began his five-day, eleven-state conservation tour in September 1963. For many reasons the tour did not succeed in putting the issue onto the national political agenda. However, it was the germ of the idea that ultimately flowered into Earth Day.

http://earthday.envirolink.org/history.html

Although, maybe it was in the 1970s that it got started

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day

What was the big issue that the first earth day was all about?


The big issues at the time of the first Earth Day were air pollution and water pollution. We in the industrial world have made enormous progress in these areas. Air and water are much cleaner by most measures, in spite of the enormous growth on our economies in that time.

Believe it or not, global warming was also an issue at that time, but it was usually known as the "greenhouse effect," and mostly discussed by science nerds in Popular Science and similar publications.

There were a lot of doomsday scenarios then, just like now. Read "Generation of Vipers" by Philip Wylie IIRC) for an instructive example. Many eco-activists (including myself, I guess) were screaming that life as we know it would be wiped out by pollution within a few years. On the one hand, these doomsday prophecies spurred people to action--they may have been the opposite of a self-fulfilling prophecy. OTOH, they sometimes cost environmentalists credibility. I mention this because the situation with global warming today seems similar.

Earth Day is just a sad sad thing.
Just what we need, one day within the year for the news to run special interest stories about how to make a better world, the other 364 days it's special interest stories about where to get the cheapest gas for your SUV.
One day? Just one day? pft!

It's a silent ride in honor of those killed while cycling.

Ride of Silence (http://www.rideofsilence.org/main.php)

They have them all over. I'm coordinating the one in Little Rock.

Earth Day is just a sad sad thing.
Just what we need, one day within the year for the news to run special interest stories about how to make a better world, the other 364 days it's special interest stories about where to get the cheapest gas for your SUV.
One day? Just one day? pft!
+1
It Earth Day really should be EVERYDAY! What was sad to me was the pictures of the "Earth Day Celebration" in a nearby town at a big park...with all the cars parked along the roadways:( attending the events.:o

Aaron:)

+1
It Earth Day really should be EVERYDAY! What was sad to me was the pictures of the "Earth Day Celebration" in a nearby town at a big park...with all the cars parked along the roadways:( attending the events.:o

Aaron:)

I guess they're all waiting for the government to do something about the situation :)

I guess they're all waiting for the government to do something about the situation :)

Gonna be a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong wait...:(

Aaron:)

Earth Day is just a sad sad thing.
Just what we need, one day within the year for the news to run special interest stories about how to make a better world, the other 364 days it's special interest stories about where to get the cheapest gas for your SUV.
One day? Just one day? pft!
It was never the intention of Earth Day to solve anything. Primarily it's a celebration of our beautiful planet, as well as a media opportunity for environmentalists.

Besides, there is far greater coverage of the environment this year than I have see in any year since the early 1970s. There would be even more attention if the media wasn't (rightly) spending a lot of ink and air time covering the war and a failed administration.

What's really funny about Earth Day is this... Google "Earth Day" and the second hit is this http://www.earthday.gov/. At first I thought it was some kind of joke.