Earth Day 2011

Earth Day 2011 is themed after the Billion Acts of Green Campaign. To date, we have collected over 100 million Acts of Green and Earth Day events in 152 countries.

How You Can Get Involved: There are hundreds of ways for you to get involved in Earth Day this year. Visit our Earth Day 2011 page for a full breakdown of programming. Want to get started right now? We recommend that you organize an Earth Day Event in your community or attend an event near you, and pledge an Act of Green. You can event check out an environmentally themed movie, like Mia and the Migoo.

Earth Day 2011 Highlights

• Large Earth Day events in 17 of the largest U.S. cities, including St. Louis, San Francisco, Dallas, and New York anticipate thousands of people often over multiple days. Volunteer service is sweeping the across the world, with cities such as Columbus, OH expecting over 4,000 people to plant community gardens, clean up riverbanks and remove invasive vegetation from parks.

• Over 150 cities and towns in India are holding Earth Day events, with an enthusiasm rivaling the very first Earth Day in 1970. Earth Day India 2011 partners include the million-member trade union Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) and the Center for Environment Education's Paryavaran Mitra Project. SEWA, founded in 1972 by noted Gandhian and civil rights leader Dr. Ela Bhatt, is coordinating Earth Day events in 10 districts of western India, while the Center is creating “Environment Friends” (Paryavaran Mitras) in 100 schools nationwide. The Center is also working with one of India's largest public sector companies, the Steel Authority of India.

Earth Day is a good time to make a commitment to learning more about the environment and how you can help to protect it. Read up on an issue such as pollution, endangered species, water shortages, recycling, and climate change. Or, learn about a region you've never considered before, like the Arctic, the deserts, or the rainforests. Think about the issues that concern you the most and if you haven't done so already, join a local group that undertakes activities to help protect the environment in your area.

Buy as little as possible and avoid items that come in lots of packaging. Support local growers and producers of food and products - these don't have to travel as far and so reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Take your drink container with you, and don't use any disposable plates or cutlery. Recycle all the things you do use for the day or find other uses for things that you no longer use. Carry a cloth bag for carrying things in and recycle your plastic bags.

Get children to recycle their old toys and games. By giving their old toys and games to younger children who could make use of them, older children learn two lessons: One is about giving to others and the second is about reusing and recycling instead of throwing things away. Adults can also do this with clothes, electrical items, books and more.

Hold an Earth Day fair. Maybe your school, your street, your local neighborhood is interested in getting together to have an environmental fair. Things to have at the fair include demonstrations of environmentally-friendly products, children's artwork, healthy/locally grown foods to eat, animal care demonstrations, games for the children made of recycled products, musicians and actors performing environmental music and skits, stalls which are recycling unwanted treasures and books, local environmental organisations presenting their issues and wares. Money raised can go towards a local environmental restoration project or to an environmental group agreed upon by all the participants running the fair.

Teach others about the environment. Teachers, professionals, students, in fact anyone who cares about the environment and is willing to teach others, can all provide environmental lessons for others. Most schools already celebrate Earth Day in the classrooms with activities but there are many other ways you can teach about the environment.

Wear green and/or brown. Dress in environmental colors for the day.

Finally, THINK GREEN and ACT GREEN!

Lady Gaga: Tell Target Child Labor Isn't Golden

By Tim Newman

Last month, pop superstar Lady Gaga partnered with Target to offer fans a special edition of her forthcoming album Born This Way. Gaga hoped that the partnership would also offer her the opportunity to work with Target to improve the company's policies toward gay rights, but apparently her hopes did not come to fruition as she has recently decided to sever ties with the company. Before Gaga completely frees herself of this bad romance, she should speak out against forced and child labor by joining almost 22,000 Change.org readers in calling on Target to agree to responsible sourcing policies for its gold.

When Target made large contributions last year to virulently anti-gay politicians in Minnesota, LGBT advocates, includingmany Change.org readers, put pressure on Target to end this support. Despite tepid apologies, Target reportedly has continued to finance anti-gay candidates. A supporter of equal rights, Gaga had stated, "Our relationship is hinged upon their reform in the company to support the gay community and to redeem the mistakes they've made supporting those [antigay] groups." If Gaga is not able to push Target to do more to support gay rights be sitting at the table with the company, she is right to end the partnership. Before she slams the door, there's one more thing she can do to change Target's policies for the better.

As we have written about on the Human Trafficking blog, Target is lagging behind other major retailers and jewelry companies in committing to responsibly sourcing the gold in its products. In many countries, gold mining is tainted by the use of child labor and forced labor, not to mention other human rights and environmental abuses. Over 70 major companies have endorsed the No Dirty Gold campaign's Golden Rules that include protecting internationally recognized labor rights and ensuring safe working conditions in addition to making environmental improvements and respecting human and land rights.

Target has indicated that it is considering endorsing the Golden Rules for its gold sourcing, but until those internal discussions result in concrete improvements for the workers around the world whose rights are being abused to mine gold, advocates will continue to pressure Target to responsibly source its gold. As one of the biggest voices in pop culture, an artist with several certified gold records and someone who has Target's ear, Lady Gaga's support for the campaign to clean up Target's gold would go a long way pushing the company to improve its policies. So, Mother Monster, as parting words to Target, why not mobilize your "Punk Art Pop Revolution" to support workers in the gold industry globally?

In the mean time, you can send an e-mail to Target and recruit your friends to join here. Keep checking Change.org for updates and new ways to take action to support this campaign in the coming days!