Earth Day Roundup: Cool Things You Can Do

Earth Day 1970

Perhaps we are a bit blasé about Earth Day; certainly most of the Earth Day stuff in the mainstream media is old hat to TreeHugger readers. Other green sites are making a point of ignoring it completely, which is perhaps better than their crapping all over it last year. Perhaps Jasmin is right, that Earth Day is the New Christmas, and that Corporate America has co-opted and monetized it.

On the other hand, perhaps it is a useful marker on the calendar for those of us not in a green bubble, for the media, businesses, and citizens to think about things other than flag pins and mortgages. Perhaps it is useful that for this one day that everyone is a bit greener. Maybe for some it will stick.

In the mood to celebrate? Click through to check out some Earth Day activities that are actually cool.

Earth Day Activities That Don't Suck

Our fellow Discovery sites have gathered together all of their posts on green themes for the day; Discovery Health has an entire page of "great ideas to help you live well and reduce your impact on the environment." How Stuff Works has rounded up all of their environmental posts, which provide an effective introduction to environmental issues, trying (perhaps too hard) to show both sides of the story with articles like Are Climate Skeptics Right? Discovery Earthlive has a very cool interactive tool where you spin the globe and follow environmental stories around the world, with a lot of TreeHugger content. Give it a spin at ::Earthlive

The Living Sea looks a lot better on a giant IMAX screen than on a computer monitor, but it is a great movie, shot on location in the Central Pacific islands of Palau, Hawaii, Alaska , Canada , the Red Sea, California and Maine. It is an Earth Day present in the form of a free download from MacGillivray Freeman Films and MSN.

The Environmental Protection Agency has chosen this day to introduce the Energy Star Pledge, "a national campaign encouraging all Americans to join with millions of others and take small, individual steps that make a big difference in the fight against global warming." Complete with streaming video of beloved leader Stephen Johnson.

Although the prizes have been handed out to KayR for "Saw the Light, Turned it off" and Marcus Eder for "I read my porn online now," it is not too late for you to come up with your on six bon mots. I liked: