Earth Day was founded by United States Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in first held on April 22, 1970. While this first Earth Day was focused on the United States, an organization launched by Denis Hayes, who was the original national coordinator in 1970, took it international in 1990 and organized events in 141 nations. Earth Day is now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network, and is celebrated in more than 175 countries every year. Numerous communities celebrate Earth Week, an entire week of activities focused on environmental issues. In 2009, the United Nations designated April 22 International Mother Earth Day.

How are you going to celebrate Earth Day?

Quotes from the Earth highlights environmental challenges at the national and international level through films in a collaborative effort by Toxics Link & India International Centre, Delhi on 4-5th December, 2010.

Quotes from the Earth has been the first of its kind in the Indian Capital since 2004. Using a discursive platform to highlight environmental challenges at the national and international level through films, which happen to be one of the most powerful medium of communication and discussion, the festival, is a collaborative effort by Toxics Link and India International Centre, Delhi.
This being the fourth, the festival (4-5th December, 2010) takes a leap of faith and acts as the fourth prong of the environmental debate and discussion with the theme as Ecological Citizenship, focusing on different issues, regions, and struggles to give audience a better chance to understand and engage with broader picture of the current status of environmental issues. Initiating, propagating and absorbing the idea of ‘E-citizens’, the films selected will throw light essentially on four categories: Earth, Water, Wildlife and Sustainability. Registrations are now open for visitors, please register if you wish to participate/visit the film festival. Entry is free, kindly register.

Register

Download festival brochure
Download festival poster

Format

The festival is proposed as an event, which goes beyond viewing films. Over a period of two days it aims to bring under one umbrella the persistent and persuasive, with each day culminating into a panel discussion on the theme. Discussing the relevance of environment education on the first day and Politics of Environment on the second with panelists from education, media, film-making and policy field, the festival aims to engage the audience for not only what exists but also what steps to take for future action toward environment conservation.

Here are a few initiatives that we wish all the best in their endeavours. The National Green Corps is an initiative by the Government of India while EnviroCorp is a community oriented effort  in Washington, USA. Our personal favorite is SAVE as it highlights the power of the individual in the process of change and starts at the grass route level. Swati Aggarwal has initiated the Student’s Association Volunteering for Earth in a small village in rural India showing us that one person can indeed make a difference.

National Green Corps

With this realisation the Ministry of Environment & Forests, Government of India has decided to launch the National Green Corps Progarnme (NGC) in all Districts of our vast country. The main objectives of this programme are to educate children about their immediate environment and impart knowledge about the eco-systems, their inter-dependence and their need for survival, through visits and demonstrations and to mobilise youngsters by instilling in them the spirit of scientific inquiry into environmental problems and involving them in the efforts of environmental preservation. This programme is being implemented in each State/UT through the Nodal agency appointed by the State/UT Govt.

EnviroCorps

EnviroCorps is a nonprofit organization based out of Washington, USA that provides people with self-directed opportunities to serve the community close to their home. Volunteering with EnviroCorps enables one to get some exercise, enhance parks and other natural areas accessible to the public, meet others who share common interests, enjoy the outdoors, and spend valuable time with family, children or grandchildren.

Student’s Association Volunteering For Earth

This is an initiative by Swati Aggarwal in Mandi Dabwali, a small town on the border of Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan. The idea is basically to educate adults about Green Living; through their own children. Over 500 plants and trees have been distributed to people to plant at their homes. The venture SAVE is an apt acronym for Student’s Association Volunteering For Earth. Its an effort to educate students about the environment, green and clean living and in turn bring about long lasting change in civic and environmental awareness amongst adults.

The survey found that environmentally friendly consumer behavior, as measured by the Greendex, has increased from 2008 levels in all but one of the 14 countries polled in both 2008 and 2010, but that suspicion of so-called “greenwashing” — companies making false claims about the environmental impact of their products — is the most significant barrier to further improvement. Out of a list of 10 obstacles to doing more for the environment, the perception of “greenwashing” emerged as the most frequently cited factor, followed closely by governments and industries failing to take action.

United Nations World Environment Day

Released on the eve of United Nations World Environment Day, “Greendex 2010: Consumer Choice and the Environment — A Worldwide Tracking Survey” is a comprehensive measure of consumer behavior in 65 areas relating to housing, transportation, food and consumer goods. Greendex 2010 ranks average consumers in 17 countries according to the environmental impact of their consumption patterns and is the only survey of its kind. World Environment Day (WED) 2010 is aimed to be a widely celebrated, global day for positive, environmental action. Commemorated on June 5 since 1972, WED is one of the principal vehicles through which the UN stimulates worldwide awareness of the environment and encourages political attention and action. WED is designed to give a human face to environmental issues and enable people around the world to realize not only their responsibility, but also their power to become agents for change in support of sustainable and equitable development.

INCREASE IN GREEN BEHAVIOR SEEN, AS INDIANS RANK MOST SUSTAINABLE, AMERICANS RANK LOWEST, IN 2010 GREENDEX SURVEY OF 17 COUNTRIES

As in 2008, the top-scoring consumers of 2010 are in the developing economies of India, Brazil, China and Mexico, in descending order. Consumers registering the largest 2010 versus 2008 increase in environmentally sustainable consumer behavior are the Indians, Russians and Americans. Environmentally sustainable behavior among average consumers in India, China, Mexico, Russia, Hungary, Japan, Great Britain and Canada has also increased steadily each year. In contrast, consumers in Germany, Spain, Sweden and France have slipped slightly over the past year.

As in 2009, much of the increase in the overall 2010 Greendex scores was due to more sustainable behavior in the housing category, in which the Greendex measures the energy and resources consumed by people’s homes. Americans, Hungarians, British and Australians saw marked increases in this area, as consumers made moves to improve the energy efficiency of their homes. In some countries, economic stimulus programs may have been a factor in motivating change. Changes in personal behavior within the categories of personal transportation, food and consumer goods were mixed, with some countries improving and some deteriorating. The results show that both cost considerations and environmental concerns motivated consumers to adopt more environmentally sustainable behavior over the past year. When consumers who reported decreases in their energy consumption were asked why their consumption declined, most cited cost as one of their top two reasons, but significant percentages ranging from approximately 20 percent to 50 percent also said environmental concerns were one of the main reasons for the decrease.

This year’s survey also revealed a number of barriers to more environmentally sustainable behavior that exist for consumers. It suggests that the perception of ‘‘greenwashing’’ (identified by 44 percent) is a more significant barrier to environmentally friendly behavior than the financial cost of making an effort (31 percent). Another important barrier is the sense that individual efforts are not worthwhile when governments and industries fail to take action (identified by 40 percent).

Awareness in India

Despite Indian consumers’ lifestyles continuing to emerge as the most environmentally sustainable of any of the countries surveyed according to the Greendex, Indians are also the most likely to cite as a barrier to action the perception that the seriousness of environmental problems is exaggerated. In all other countries surveyed, fewer than a quarter say they are discouraged from taking action because they consider environmental problems are exaggerated, while 40 percent of Indians feel this way. In the longer term, these perceptions may act as a brake on long-term adoption of sustainable lifestyles in India as the subcontinent’s economy continues to develop.

UN Under Secretary General and UN Environment Programme Executive Director Achim Steiner, speaking on the eve of World Environment Day whose main global host in 2010 is Rwanda, said, “Perhaps one of the most fascinating aspects of this study is the continuing and indeed increasing environmental literacy of developing and rapidly developing economy consumers in Asia and Latin America, including India, Brazil and China. “Consumer interest and pressure has the potential to spur business on toward providing and manufacturing goods and services, which in turn can move societies towards a low-carbon, resource-efficient and more competitive Green Economy urgently needed to put sustainability into the 21st century,” he added.

In comparison to only 1 percent of Americans, 37 percent of Chinese consumers mention the environment as the most important issue facing their country, up 15 percentage points from 2009. Indians and Russians are also increasingly likely to think that the environment is their countries’ most important national issue, with consumers in all three of these countries being among the four — including Australia — most likely to think so. Consumers in emerging economies continue to round out the top tier of the Greendex ranking, while the bottom six countries are all industrialized countries.

Discover Your Greendex Score

Individuals around the world can find out where they rank on the Greendex scale by visiting Greendex and taking an abbreviated survey. This quantitative consumer study of 17,000 consumers in 17 countries (14 in 2008) asked about such behavior as energy use and conservation, transportation choices, food sources, the relative use of green products versus traditional products, attitudes towards the environment and sustainability, and knowledge of environmental issues. A complex algorithm is applied to results to generate an index score, i.e., a Greendex score, for each individual respondent that reflects the relative environmental impact of his or her consumption patterns in the areas of housing, transportation and the consumption of food and consumer goods. Individual scores are averaged to create a mean score for each country. The Greendex measures the impact of the average consumer in each country surveyed; it does not measure the environmental impact of a total country.

People can also examine the Greendex survey results by country, measure their knowledge of some basic green issues against what others around the world know and get tips on living a more environmentally friendly lifestyle.

Download a Copy of the 2010 Greendex Highlights Report (PDF)
Download a Copy of the Full 2010 Greendex Report (230 Pages, 14 MB) (PDF)

Via National Geographic Press Release

The initiative, launched jointly by TOI and Garnier on April 22 in six cities (Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad) had invited green and sustainable ideas from readers in six key areas: Water conservation and pollution, energy generation and conservation, recycling and waste management, transport vehicular pollution, heritage and culture conservation, biodiversity and greening.

The solutions sought from readers were both at micro and macro levels. The initiative garnered tremendous response from across the country with thousands of applications pouring in with ideas on how best to save the earth. May 11 was the deadline for receiving the ideas. Now, each winner from the six cities will participate in a panel discussion and contribute towards the special edition of The Times of India on June 5, World Environment Day, to be guest-edited by Jairam Ramesh, union minister for environment and forests.

Via: Times of India

PVC-U has a good ecological balance when compared to wood and generally much better compared to aluminum. PVC-U is recyclable any number of times, has proven performance benefits in the event of fire and has a relatively low intrinsic oil content unmatched by polyethylene, polypropylene or polystyrene. All in all, these benefits add up to make PVC-U an extremely beneficial and cost-effective choice, as well as an intelligent one for specifiers wishing to use an environmentally responsible product with a long life span, low maintenance needs and documented performance and recyclability. One of the most successful modern synthetic materials, it makes excellent use of scarce resources, is long-lasting and safe in production, use and disposal. The effect of PVC-U on the environment, from manufacture to disposal, has been more thoroughly researched, more than almost any other synthetic material.