What will they think in 100 years?

100 A.D., Rome -- In the Colosseum, persecuted Christians are thrown into the ring with blood-thristy lions. Contrary to Hollywood-inspired popular belief, Russell Crowe was not actually present to save the day.

1692, Salem, MA -- The Salem witch trials culminate in the deaths of at least 20 people accused of witchcraft.

1945, Germany -- The Holocaust.

These are all historical events that, when we look back on today, we can only ask ourselves, "how did that happen? How did the people who lived through that not realize how crazy things were?" Can you imagine bearing witness to such crazy events and not realizing how completely bizarre and irrational they truly were? Is there anything that our great-grandchildren will look back on in the year 2100 and shake their heads and wonder how we could have ever been so stupid?

I humbly submit the following for consideration. I do not mean to make direct comparisons between what I've listed above and what the people are talking about on this clip. I'm only trying to suggest that this type of attitude and disrespect will someday be remembered as a tragedy in its own right. Hopefully, when people look back on this type of attitude as a relic from history, they'll be doing so from a green, healthy planet, and not some dark, sun-less, Bladerunner-type existence.

What more can I say about a person who expresses a feeling of erotic pleasure about the chopping down of trees on Earth Day. Perhaps I'll leave the last word to Thomas Pynchon. He was writing about nuclear armageddon, but if you substitute "Slothrop" for "Beck," and "rockets exploding in the sky" for "trees being chopped down," you'll see it's not so far off.

"Jamf was only a fiction, to help [Slothrop] explain what he felt so terribly, so immediately in his genitals for those rockets each time exploding in the sky... to help him deny what he could not possibly admit: that he might be in love, in sexual love, with his, and his race's, death."

Is Disney's Earth movie a great way to improve environmental awareness, or just another corporation looking to cash in on Americans' increasing interest in sustainability?

The philanthropy vs. publicity debate is an important one, especially in this age of greenwashing. I've been bombarded with Earth Day promotions and offers, and it's difficult to separate the good from the too-good-to-be-true. It's a subject I'd like to return to soon. As I mentioned yesterday, the Disney Earth movie's promotion to plant a tree for every ticket sold seems like a great idea, not to mention the actual content of the movie itself.

Check out the debate over the Disney movie here for more.

Happy Earth Day

So what's going on this Earth Day?  Among all the crazy promotions and promises made to capitalize on the buzz, I liked this one: Disney's Earth movie starts, and for every ticket that's purchased, Disney will plant a tree.  It's as good a reason as any to check out the film.  The added bonus is, thanks to the commercial, the promise of the Sigur Ros song Hoppipola on the soundtrack.

In other relevant news, President Obama continues to push his aggressive environmental agenda.  That's a hopeful sign for all of us.  Let's hope that he's successful, and that the blossoming green-collar economy not only helps us combat climate change, but also can provide a boost to the economy (in case you haven't heard, there's a recession on).

Whatever your plans for tomorrow, it's important to remember the now cliche saying, "every day is Earth Day."  

More tomorrow.

Green book deliveries

For those of you who live in the Boston area, check out the Harvard Book Store's promotion for this week.  You can get free delivery this week of any book order, and your order will be delivered by bike.  The delivery service will continue after this week, although it won't be free.  Still, if you live within the deliver range, and you've been to the Harvard Book Store, you'll know why I'm excited about this.

The bike company is called MetroPed, formerly the New Amsterdam Project.  It's the same company that delivers my CSA box in the summer.   The emissions-free bikes, which I've seen often in the area making their deliveries, are kinda badass.

I apologize to those readers who do not live in Boston.  I don't know if you have any exciting book delivery offers in your area.  But since it's Earth Day on Wednesday, keep your eyes peeled for promotional offers.  I'm sure there's some cool stuff going on all over the place.

Earth Day in two days...

Bikes for Boston?

Is Boston getting ready for a bike-share program?

In a great article in the Boston Globe (and please note it's a Globe article--I shudder to think what the failure of the Globe and other newspapers would mean for the future of green blogging and in fact all information, but that's another post...), Boston's readiness for a bike-sharing program is explored in all its gory details.  

What might such a program look like here?  Paris has the Velib service that's been in existence since the summer of '07.  You can get a year-long pass to Velib for around $40, and a one-day rental for less than $2.  It's cheap, it's easy, and it's green.

Of course, those of us who've lived in Boston for any length of time know that bike availability isn't the only problem for would-be Bostonian cyclists.  Quite frankly, you need to get armored up like RoboCop to protect yourself from the drivers.  A successful program probably requires significant investment, not just in the bicycles, but in providing safe, usable roads and sidewalks and pathways.  Think about Boston in January, and then think about navigating the already treacherous roads on a rented bike.  There's still some work to be done here.

Still, it seems like excellent timing for such a project to take off.  It would be a great investment in public transportation, forcing the city to deal with infrastructure problems, employing everyone from city workers to bike mechanics, and just maybe making the air of the city a little easier to breathe.

Looking ahead to Earth Day 09

Now that Earth Hour has come and gone, it's time for look forward to Earth Day.  Yup, a whole twenty-four hours dedicated to the Earth!  This year Earth Day is on April 22, so make a note on your calendar.

Please excuse the lack of a creative segue here, but if you look to the left of the blog, you'll see a badge from the folks at Brighter Planet.  They continue to come up with unique and creative campaigns that bring awareness to environmental issues.  For Earth Day, they've begun the #earthtweet tweet-a-thon.

Full disclosure: I've never used Twitter.  I'm already so hooked in to everything, from email to instant message to the internet to Facebook, that I basically have wires coming out the back of my head, Matrix-style.  So I've honestly never taken the time to explore the wonderful world of Twitter.

However, for you Twitter-ers out there, check out earthtweet.com.  Set up to bring awareness to Earth Day 09, you can send updates on what you're doing to celebrate Earth Day.  And while I'm not making any promises, if I do end up on Twitter, this will be my first stop.