Leslie Kauffman, The New York Times 21 Apr 10;
So strong was the antibusiness sentiment for the first Earth Day in 1970 that organizers took no money from corporations and held teach-ins “to challenge corporate and government leaders.”
Forty years later, the day has turned into a premier marketing platform for selling a variety of goods and services, like office products, Greek yogurt and eco-dentistry.
For this year’s celebration, Bahama Umbrella is advertising a specially designed umbrella, with a drain so that water “can be stored, reused and recycled.” Gray Line, a New York City sightseeing company, will keep running its buses on fossil fuels, but it is promoting an “Earth Week” package of day trips to green spots like the botanical gardens and flower shopping at Chelsea Market.
F. A. O. Schwarz is taking advantage of Earth Day to showcase Peat the Penguin, an emerald-tinted plush toy that, as part of the Greenzys line, is made of soy fibers and teaches green lessons to children. The penguin, Greenzys promotional material notes, “is an ardent supporter of recycling, reusing and reducing waste.”
To many pioneers of the environmental movement, eco-consumerism, creeping for decades, is intensely frustrating and detracts from Earth Day’s original purpose.
“This ridiculous perverted marketing has cheapened the concept of what is really green,” said Denis Hayes, who was national coordinator of the first Earth Day and is returning to organize this year’s activities in Washington. “It is tragic.”
Yet the eagerness of corporations to sign up for Earth Day also reflects the environmental movement’s increased tolerance toward corporate America: Many “big greens,” as leading environmental advocacy organizations are known, now accept that they must take money from corporations or at the least become partners with them if they are to make real inroads in changing social behavior.
This year, in an updated version of a teach-in, Greenpeace will team up with technology giants like Cisco and Google to hold a Web seminar focused on how the use of new technologies like videoconferencing and “cloud” computing can reduce the nation’s carbon footprint. Daniel Kessler, a spokesman for Greenpeace, said it was necessary to “promote a counterweight to the fossil fuel industry.”
In 1970, Mayor John V. Lindsay of New York addressed a crowd of tens of thousands in Union Square on Earth Day, in an atmosphere The New York Times likened to a “secular revival meeting.”
This year, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will be in Times Square to announce measures to reduce New York’s impact on the environment. Using the same stage, Keep America Beautiful, an antilittering nonprofit organization, will introduce “dream machines,” recycling kiosks it is introducing with PepsiCo. The machines are meant to increase the recycling rates for beverage containers, which is estimated at about 36 percent nationwide.
Of course, a fair portion of the more than 200 billion beverage containers produced in the United States each year are filled with PepsiCo products like Mountain Dew and Aquafina; such bottle trash contributes to serious pollution on beaches, oceans and inland waterways.
Still, Matthew M. McKenna, president and chief executive of Keep America Beautiful, and a former PepsiCo senior vice president, said he jumped at the opportunity to have his former employer introduce its new kiosk at the event.
“We are not being asked to encourage the purchase of Pepsi or the consumption of their products,” he said. “We are asked to deal in the field with what happens when they get thrown out.”
While the momentum for the first Earth Day came from the grass roots, many corporations say that it is often the business community that now leads the way in environmental innovation — and they want to get their customers interested. In an era when the population is more divided on the importance of environmental issues than it was four decades ago, the April event offers a rare window, they say, when customers are game to learn about the environmentally friendly changes the companies have made.
Frank Sherman, United States green officer for TD Bank, said the company hurried to get its prototype of a highly energy-efficient bank branch building in Queens ready for Earth Day because that’s when “people are paying attention.”
The original Earth Day events were attended by 20 million Americans — to this day among the largest participation in a political action in the nation’s history.
This year, while the day will be widely marked with events, including a climate rally on the Mall in Washington, the movement does not have the same support it had four decades ago.
In part, said Robert Stone, a independent documentary filmmaker whose history of the American environmental movement is being broadcast on public television this week, the movement has been a victim of its own success in clearing up tangible problems with air and water. But that is just part of the problem, he noted.
“Every Earth Day is a reflection of where we are as a culture,” he said. “If it has become commoditized, about green consumerism instead of systemic change, then it is a reflection of our society.”
Green Auction To Mark 40th Anniversary Of Earth Day
Christopher Michaud, PlanetArk 23 Apr 10;
Artists, conservationists, business leaders and film and music stars from around the globe are marking the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day with a Green Auction to benefit the environment.
Organizers of the live auction on Thursday at Christie's and a companion silent online sale and related events, known as "A Bid to Save the Earth," expect to raise millions for four nonprofit environmental groups.
Artists Jenny Holzer, Damien Hirst, Alan Sonfist have donated major works for the sale. Jeff Koons will provide a studio visit to the highest bidder and Annie Leibovitz has donated signed copies of her book.
Bidders can also vie for tennis lessons with John McEnroe, an afternoon in Central Park with Canice Bergen, dinner and the theater with actress Sigourney Weaver or a day on the set with Australian star Hugh Jackman.
Jewelry, watches and luxury green travel packages will round out the items up for grabs at Thursday's auction.
"It's an unprecedented collaboration," said Susan Cohn Rockefeller, who is co-chair of the auction with husband David Rockefeller Jr., a philanthropist and environmental activist.
With participation from quarters as far-reaching as Deutsche Bank, NBC Universal and retailers Target and Barneys, officials said the event reflected increasing understanding that business concerns are closely tied to environmental issues, and that two need not be opposing forces.
"We're building bridges with different communities," said Peter Lehner, executive director of the international environmental advocacy group Natural Resources Defense Counsel, which will benefit from the event.
He added that his group has been working closely with such nontraditional environmental allies as manufacturers and labor unions.
Doug Blonsky, president of the Central Park Conservancy, which is another beneficiary, agreed.
"There's a real business model behind environmentalism," he said.
Proceeds from the auction, which will be carried on Christie's live at www.christies.com and continues with a silent auction ending on May 6 (www.abidtosavetheearth.org), will also benefit Oceana and Conservation International.
Christie's is waiving all fees and commissions for the sale, and in nod toward being green is not printing a catalog. Native Energy is providing carbon offsets -- reduced carbon emissions to counter those associated with the event.
Charity auctions have raked in big bucks in recent years, and while the financial crisis has struck hard, experts say the art market is on the verge of a strong recovery.
Organizers say that raising awareness and stimulating even small donations to environmental concerns is a chief goal.
Those on a more modest budget can scoop up one of Barney's specially designed $40 T-shirts, a tie-in with the event.
Text happy tweeters are encouraged to text GOGREEN to phone number 20222 for a $10 donation, while both Twitter (Bid2SaveEarth) and Facebook (ABidToSaveTheEarth)are linked to the auction.
