Earthday and Social Traffic

When I went to research about Earth Day, the first thing I found out was that there is actually two Earth days. Ironically, when I checked in Wikipedia, it said that there was actually some dispute between the editors about the content. One of the Earth days is celebrated on the March equinox (which is one of two days in the year when day and night are of equal length. The other equinox is around September 21) and the other Earth Day is April 22.

According to Wikipedia, “On the 22nd of April, 1970, Earth Day marks the beginning of the modern environmental movement.” Gaylord Nelson (a US Senator) is recognised as being the founder. He describes how the actual day emerged from the seeds of thoughts he had in 1962 to persuade then President Kennedy to go on a national conservation tour. He continued to talk about the environment but noticed that it was not on the political agenda at all. He began to speak about Earth Day in 1969 and in 1970 there was the first Earth Day. On that day 20 million Americans participated by organising protests against pollution, environmental degradation and dumping. Gaylord Nelson described Earth Day as something that organised itself. He died in 2005 aged 89. Denis Hayes was the organiser of that 1970 event.

If we fast forward to the turn of the new millennium, 200 million were mobilised to support Earth day in 1990 to focus on recycling which in turn inspired the United Nations Earth Summit. In 2000 another Earth Day event reached out to millions of people all over the world with the help of over 5,000 environmental groups. By 2007 Earth Day was celebrated by over a billion people with its emphasis on developing clean energy technologies.

Fast forward to 2009, Simon Ford (www.socialtraffic.biz) has a vision of harnessing the cleanest purest energy there is: human goodness and desire to help to promote Earth Day. He has a vision to build a new business model using only human capital. This is a new way of doing business..where commerce is inextricably linked with connection, compassion and respect. Simon has chosen Earth Day as a way to both promote this extraordinary global event through harnessing the new grassroots (the online community) through a potent combination of words and connections. If you wish to promote your event..but you want to market it by learning to fish rather than catching a fish...why not check out this new movement. You’ll be glad you joined us. agw.edbd

According to Wikipedia, “On the 22nd of April, 1970, Earth Day marks the beginning of the modern environmental movement.” Gaylord Nelson (a US Senator) is recognised as being the founder. He describes how the actual day emerged from the seeds of thoughts he had in 1962 to persuade then President Kennedy to go on a national conservation tour. He continued to talk about the environment, but noticed that it was not on the political agenda at all. He began to speak about Earth Day in 1969; and in 1970, there was the first Earth Day. Twenty million Americans were involved. This number of people completely took the government of the day by surprise. John C. Whittaker (http://www.epa.gov/history/topics/earthday/10.htm) describes a number of factors as contributing to this new environmental movement: growing affluence, emergence of well-educated “activist” class, growth of media, presence of a large well developed scientific community

As with many movements, other people simultaneously took up the challenge and one of these was John McConnell. The March equinox was chosen because of its long historic connection to the advent of Spring as indicated when the sun crosses the equator. Stonehenge was built to help identify this moment so this date connects with our ancestors in a powerful way. For a long time, this was also the first date of the new year and in many Asian countries it still is. For me, there is a certain sad irony in noting that even on deciding the date...there seems to be more emphasis on which is the “right” Earth day than accepting that people can perhaps celebrate both days.

In the 1980’s, Earthday seemed to recede, but in the 1990’s a huge push was placed on it again and over 100 million people were drawn into it. (Leonardo De Caprio hosted a celebrity interview with President Clinton.) The focus was on recycling. This inspired the United Nations Earth Summit. In 2000, another Earth Day event reached out to millions of people all over the world with the help of over 5,000 environmental groups. By 2007, Earth Day was celebrated by over a billion people with its emphasis on developing clean energy technologies. The 2008 Earthday celebrations (with its emphasis on Call for Climate, our global warming action theme) was the biggest to date. The emphasis of 2009 is the Green Generation campaign. The emphasis is to be on renewable energy sources, individual’s commitment to responsible consumption, and the creation of a new green economy.

Simon Ford (Social Traffic Inc) plans to be part of the history of Earth Day by utilising only the power of human capital (to quote Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtfully committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.") to promote events all over the world for Earthday. He plans to do this utilising the most powerful network and connection web the world has ever seen: Web 2.0 agw.edbd

Click here for events happening on Earth Day.