The cooler colored end of the spectrum. Happy Earth Day, everyone!

Okay, there's a lot of lead in to this particular post, so bear with me.

*My coworker, Peter, alerted me to this fantastic web site that we all should take the time to browse. There are at least 50 Ways to Help the Planet. Thanks for the link, buddy!

Here is a link to a Grist.org story about the newest term in greening your life: Blue.

This link was shown to me by my coworker, Brian. It's the International Earth Day web site.

This is a link to the article Adam Werbach wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle, pronouncing environmentalism dead and declaring the need for a new movement to better our planet and our communities.

Now that you have all of that information down your gullet, we can start talking about all of this.

Why BLUE, Werbach? Granted, you're the former president of the Sierra Club, but to what authority does that give you to declare environmentalism DEAD? I sincerely doubt that statement.

So, Blue is this new-fangled idea that, as Grist explained:
"People who are part of the BLUE movement aspire to make a difference through the people and products that touch their lives. It encompasses green issues like protecting our last wild places and reducing our output of CO2, but it also includes personal concerns like saving money, losing weight, and spending time with friends and family."

The last time I checked, that was our moral obligation as human beings.

Am I wrong?

Are we not required to be stewards of the Earth and our own beings? What Werbach is trying to do, I suppose, is hold all aspects of human existence at the same level of importance, which is great- I just think people are supposed to do this on their own. The folks that want to join have already made necessary changes in their lives- they're already forward thinking. He gives Switzerland as an example of a country that has been green for decades and considers their consciously-living citizens as blue.

I guess I want to know if you consider yourself blue or not? I would like to think of myself as falling into that criteria, I certainly try to stay healthy, eat right, spend conscientiously, encourage the same from my peers, but I know there are vices that keep me out of blue company. Who knows, maybe this will take off, maybe it won't.

Perhaps we should consider today, Earth Day, our new Resolution Day. Perhaps we can all make an effort to "green" or "blue" our bodies and thus change our economy, communities, even the world. Who knows. I'm still slightly skeptical of the whole "blue movement" idea, but it's definitely something worth pondering.

Other subjects worth pondering over:

How much do you REUSE instead of RECYCLE? This is a theme Gary Hershberg of Stonyfield Yogurt refers to often ... my friend Nathan and I just had a brief conversation about it, too. There's a lot of energy that goes in to recycling. If we make an effort to buy previously recycled materials or remove wasteful materials from our lives entirely, we'll save more energy, time and money than if we created new materials to recycle later. Think about it.


Also, how many hours a week do you spend outside? Now that the weather is nicer we're all getting out there and enjoying nature, but just how much time do you spend surrounded by trees? Our children are facing Nature Deficit Disorder ... now is the time to get ourselves out in the woods, at the beach, on a mountain, and allow our beings to be nurtured by nature.


So, if you feel even just an inkling to do so, please comment. Share with me the strides you're making to make this planet and your being a better place to dwell.
[Nathan: I know you're getting LEED certified- shout it from the rooftops!]

Happy Earth Day, everyone. Love your mother.
[Perhaps we should switch the title to Earth Mother's Day, hahaha.]

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