Earth Day(tm) -- Tastes Great, Less Filling

On Earth Day, President Obama asked us to remember Senator Gaylord Nelson, the
founder of Earth Day. But as Nelson himself admitted, he wasn't the one
who should be held responsible for Earth Day's success. He wrote,

"Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the
grassroots level. ... That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It
organized itself."

Earth Day was a movement borne by personal conviction. It was a peace
movement -- virulently anti-nuclear and informed by opposition to the
Vietnam War. It was a political movement. Individuals clogging the
streets of New York City raised environmental protection in the
consciousness of the politicians and decision-makers who passed the
Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act, and created the Environmental
Protection Agency. Earth Day organizers challenged the idea that what
was good for corporate America was good for the rest of America. They
stood against profiteering and consumerism, in favor of conservation and
stewardship.

Senator Nelson's words contrast highly with the recent words of
Senator Lindsey Graham. Corporate support, Sen. Graham says, is necessary to pass climate
legislation.

This is corporate support of the environment: in California
this year, Chevron -- an oil company -- is headlining an Earth Day event, along with Pacific
Gas and Electric. If their event was proportional to the size of the
pollution they spew, it would be the largest in the state. Disney's
giving away eco-caps in exchange for empty soda bottles, while
Nestle has made their water bottles environmentally friendly by giving
it an "eco-shape." It baffles me to think that a
movement that once prided itself on a moral conviction that looked far
beyond the brazen pursuit of profit, materialism, and personal gain has
been co-opted by the shortsighted and opportunistic.

Today's corporate environmentalism applies the same theories as the consumerism that the original Earth Day stood
against. Green is no longer a color, it's a corporate tactic to get
someone to buy something. If Shell can swaddle its advertisements in
soft blue-greens and say it's planning to shift away from drilling dirty
tar sands oil in Canada, it can get away with ramping up production in those same tar sands and
making money at the expense of people from the tar sands in Alberta,
Canada to refineries in Texas. If Chase Bank can open a "green" branch, it can get
away with financing mountaintop removal.

Instead of inspiring the creation of legislation or a robust
regulatory agency, this year's Earth Day seemed to exist to build hype
for an energy bill that's already in the pipeline and
which many are afraid will take away the Clean Air Act's limits on greenhouse gases.

Instead of a peace movement or a political movement, instead of the
uprising of millions of individuals concerned about the state of the
world in which they live, Earth Day has become a political and public
relations stunt. It says, "Lend your voice to getting something done."
But it doesn't urge anyone to ask what that "something" is, and it
doesn't educate anyone about climate change or any of the environmental
challenges facing the world today. Instead, it just says, "Buy this stuffed animal. Drink this bottled water. Have a free bumper sticker."

Thursday morning, I awoke to a barrage of statements about Earth Day.
Politicians, corporations, and organizations alike celebrated the fact
that Earth Day had turned 40. We were told that we'd come a long way
since 1970, that together, we'd reduced the sludge in our rivers and the
smog in our air.
And while the headlines read "Happy Anniversary," a drilling rig off the coast of Louisiana burned and
sank, spilling thousands of gallons of crude oil and diesel into
the Gulf of Mexico and leaving eleven families without their loved ones.

BP, the company moving "Beyond Petroleum," which had leased the rig, pledged to
help and offered full support to Transocean, Ltd., the owner of the
rig, but avoided corporate responsibility.
The corporate focus of Earth Day stands in sharp contrast to the spirit
of the Goldman Environmental Prizes, which were awarded in Washington,
DC on Wednesday night.

Each year, the Goldman Environmental Prize is awarded to
grassroots leaders from around the world who are working to protect the
environment and promote environmental justice. Thuli
Makama, who works for our sister group Friends of the Earth Swaziland, was a prize
recipient this year. She has advocated for poor, rural communities who
have been forced off of their traditional land so it can be used for big
game hunting.

The body in charge of the big game preserves is not a government
agency, but a private company named Big Game Parks. Without fear of
prosecution, Big Game Parks has killed people in these local
communities, claiming they were poaching. The company has literally
gotten away with murder by purporting to protect big game and conserve
the environment.

But Thuli has been able to challenge Big Game Parks's legal immunity
and the constitutionality of the law that allows Big Game Parks to
patrol the parks. Her successes, as well as the successes of other
Goldman Prize recipients, stand as proof that around the world, the
spirit of the original Earth Day still exists. But it's not in a
corporate boardroom or the marketing division of a company. It's in the
people who organize themselves and whose passion for justice compels
others to act.