Earth Day is a Big Commercial Sham

It’s a well known fact that anything that becomes popular in this country is instantly commercialized beyond any recognition. This is the reason that Earth Day is now being called “the new Christmas”. It’s now a holiday in which you can prepare for ahead of time by spending lots of money on ways to make yourself feel better for saving the earth.

• You can buy reusable bags from every major supermarket chain (including, of course, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods).
• You can buy your “how to save the planet” books, printed on 100% recycled acid-free paper.
• You can put on concerts to help save the earth.
• You can volunteer for your favorite organization (probably being backed by corporate dollars).
• You can even buy your friends and family “Happy Earth Day” cards.

Then, when Earth Day ends, we’ll go back to our usual activities:

• Most of us will go back to throwing away our plastic bottles
• We’ll fill our cars with gallons of gas just to drive a few blocks to the market
• We’ll keep running the water while we brush our teeth
• We’ll go back to work for the same companies that pretend to be doing something for the environment

How about making a real vow to help the environment? How about doing something beyond the designated day the media and corporations tell us to focus on it? Try these:

• Make a vow to not eat animal products (beyond the cruelty issue, eating animals increases your carbon footprint substantially)
• Buy your food only from farmers markets (locally produced, severally limits carbon footprint)
• Sell your car and ride a bike or public transit (carbon footprint reduction, and helps eliminate dependence on oil)
• Stop buying any products made with wasteful packaging
• Plant a tree every week to offset your carbon footprint

It’s nice to say we will, but there’s a reason Earth Day is called a holiday… on April 23rd, we’ll go back to the way we were before the holiday.