2010 April, 22nd

Phil Butler

Our friends at Google have come through once again with a thoughtful “Google Doodle” thematic of Earth Day, the forests of green flowing across the top of our search engine pages – leafy tendrils kissing the gentle wings of song birds in flight – rays of golden sunshine beaming down to our glorious Earth mother. This doodle is actually one of the most beautiful yet articulated by our beloved geeks at Google, a fitting memorial this Earth Day, 2010.

Across the globe people celebrate this day by paying a little closer attention to our home. Here in Germany, recycling and conservation are such a prevalent theme, but elsewhere people from all walks are pitching in to celebrate something truly worth cheering about, our planet. In South Florida, good ole USA for instance, Littleton Elementary is dedicating an “Outdoor Learning Center” sponsored by the local forestry commission to educate kids about that part of Florida’s ecosystem. In San Francisco everything from organic wine tasting to cowgirls demonstrating promoting composting will be underway.

An Avatar for Real Live Earth

In Bulgaria Earth Day is now being celebrated across the country through various initiatives. One such celebration involves some 500 children from the city of Vratsa in Northern Bulgaria to address concern over that area’s ecological conditions, while another group of kids will celebrate Bulgaria’s first ever ‘adopted’ centennial tree in the village of Chelopek.

People from every walk of life, in some 200 countries around the world, as well as some of the most famous people, companies and organizations are chipping in for this the 40th celebration of Earth. Of substantial note is the effort by famed movie director James Cameron, whose monumental film Avatar strikes at the core of this issue of planet Earth and our ties to it. Cameron was interviewed earlier about Avatar’s DVD release on this day, and his lifelong interest for environmental concerns. Interestingly, Cameron has been in Brazil fighting for the plight of f the indigenous Kayapo communities there.

When asked about Avatar’s core environmental message, it was poignant to note Cameron’s revelation that the movie studios rather than suggesting an environmental backdrop for the sci-fi/adventure, asked if he could take out the so called “tree hugger crap” from the film.  Thank goodness Cameron has the power to do what he pleases. But, this leads us to the other side of Earth Day – big business and the corporate lie.

Earth in the Balance

Fortunately or unfortunately for all of us, depending on how one looks at it, there the balance struck by “real” environmental movements and visionaries like James Cameron is often offset in reality by what amounts to corporate PR BS. If you look at the article from Florida about kids and non-profits chipping in, within the same “announcement” you will see Verizon Wireless’ fairly transparent bit about recycling cell phones. As if “bring them old phones in, help Earth, and get yourself a spanking new phone and service, ” were not obvious. Verizon is however, a bit part compared with other piggybacking exercises out there.

The allegory of Avatar is taking place right now a breathtaking speed. While Cameron’s initiative does get some press for Avatar, it also plants over a million trees too, and as if Avatar needed more press. At the other end of the spectrum every major corporation in the world has some PR effort to project the perception they are concerned for mother Earth. Every company. Taking Exxon Mobile as just one example, in the video below an environmental group attempts to expose one of the world’s least environmentally friendly companies and their PR ad attempts at this illusion.

From an investigative news person’s point of view, just so you get a hint, nearly every story we write that has any connection at all to business, there appears some environmentally significant aspect. Goldman Sachs and Wall Street to the Olympic Games, anything that has ties to resources and business is literally about some atrocity or other on planet Earth. Looking at our recent articles about the Vancouver games and the unfortunate death of an athlete, Nodar Kumaritashvili, just linking officials of the various Olympic organizers with business leads almost certainly to environmental impacts.

It is probably no accident that Olympic bid selection has as much to do with natural resources and profit, as it does with anything else. Russia, British Columbia, Singapore, Brazil, Beijing, every awarded Olympic city is inextricably associated with either progressively more rare Earth resources, or infrastructure deals of an almost unimaginable magnitude. An Eco loving Olympic Games set atop sacred Native American land? The celebration of mankind’s most basic excellence, athleticism, refocused on the business of mankind’s blight – conspicuous consumption.

Earth Day 2010 – 40 Years to Here

In conclusion, this Earth Day is significant because it is the 40th Anniversary of a movement dedicated to preserving the life of our planet and future generations. Ironically, several generations have been born into a world which is sadly less better off than it was. A couple of billion children are now growing up in a world with sadly diminished resources. Many, even after 40 years, are either starving or somehow subjected to horrible conditions largely brought about by the very companies who proclaim their Eco-friendliness like champions of humanity.

Meanwhile the little people, you and me, depend on the good graces of people like Jim Cameron, the rare rich celebrity whose art and ingenuity somehow set him above the corporate greed circle. Today we should rejoice at the whimsical doodling of Google, the cinematic and symbolic majesty of Avatar, and the little children with their butterflies. At the same time we should ever more sincerely scrutinize what is actually happening to the world where we live – our only home.

• 2010/04/29 -- Chinese Gymnast Dong Fangxiao Takes Rap for China
• 2010/03/13 -- Nodar Kumaritashvili’s Death, and Still More IOC Bad PR
• 2010/03/02 -- Vancouver’s Closing Ceremonies and A Memorable Olympiad
• 2010/08/16 -- The Singapore Youth Games, Olympic Monetization
• 2010/06/01 -- Earth Events Cause for Alarm in Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Ecuador
• 2010/05/30 -- Procter and Gamble’s Online Marriage, A Pitiful Engagement
• 2010/04/19 -- It’s Time for a New Olympic Super Hero

About the Author

Phil Butler is editor-in-chief of Everything PR and senior partner at Pamil Visions PR. He’s a widely cited authority on beta startups, search engines and public relations issues, and he has covered tech news since 2004. Phil wrote in the past for ReadWriteWeb, Mashable, Profy, SitePoint, Search Engine Journal, AltSearchEngines. Follow Phil on Twitter or send him an email at phil [at] pamil-visions [dot] com.

See All Posts by This Author