Stop Junk Mail. Be Eco Friendly. Do Good. The GreenDimes Blog

NEW YORK HEARTS TREES

Last week the sun was soaring high above the clouds in New York City, the week of Earth Day.  Our CEO, Pankaj, was in town for a series of interviews.  Here you can see him standing in front of the shop window of the NBC Experience Store in Rockafeller Center where GreenDimes had set up a kiosk for people to sign up to our service.  A portion of the store's proceeds will be donated to MillionTreesNYC, a program set up by Mayor Bloomberg with a plan to plant 1 million trees by 2017.

In fact, THIS IS THE MONTH! Besides MillionTressNYC starting a movement with set goals to increase tree planting in the city with the determined stance that New Yorkers are the active go-getters to make this happen, they have also called for people to start planting as much as they can this month.    An ode to Earth Day and the shift into springtime, they are calling on people to either let them know about streets which need attention or joining planting groups in local neighborhoods.

NBC Universal also hosted a Green is Universal initiative where up to 150 NBCU volunteers planted trees in East Harlem, New York City, an area with a low population of trees and children with a high asmtha rate.

Cast members from Lipstick Jungle, The Real Housewives of New York City, Saturday Night Live and Bette Midler, were also getting the spades and buckets out for the MillionTreesNYC project. 

In addition to  their partnerships with MillionTreesNYC, recycling bins were set up around the TODAY studio where people could drop off their unwanted electronics - cell phones, old laptops, cameras, Blackberries, etc.  This was a partnership of NBC Universal with Environmental Media Association, HP and Staples in a project called Green Screens, an act that also took place around 76 Staple branches throughout the NYC boroughs and Long Island but occurred prior to Earth Day Week.  The donated cellphones were transferred into an art installation by Kevin O'Callaghan and his students at the School of Visual Arts, on exhibition throughout the week.

 

TURN THE LIGHTS DOWN

This isn’t the beginning of a risqué short story but a reminder of what happened on March 29th, 2008 at 8pm across the globe when a significant moment happened - we realised that the smallest acts have the biggest impacts.  At exactly the same time across the world, up to 200 cities turned their lights off for Earth Hour, an event created by the World Wildlife Fund in 2007.  It has now grown to become a global movement.

With Earth Day only days away....let's remember this fine moment.

Earth Day started in 1970 by founder, Gaylord Nelson, a US Senator from Wisconsin, who proposed the first nationwide environmental protest,  ‘"to shake up the political establishment and force this issue onto the national agenda.  It was a gamble," he recalls, "but it worked."

‘’Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.’’

Green Apple Festival 2008

Take a bite out of the Green Apple

Where will you be spending Earth Day this year?  How about at the 3rd annual Green Apple Festival? They’re calling it “America’s largest Earth Day celebration” where you can enjoy a weekend of music and environmental awareness from April 18^th- April 20^th.  The Festival will have 8 locations across the U.S. and they are free.  The bummer is that since that they occur simultaneously, it would be hard to attend all of them; if you need pick one, here they are:  New York City (Central Park), Washington, DC (The National Mall), Chicago IL (Lincoln Park Zoo), Miami FL (Bicentennial Park), Denver CO (City Park), Dallas TX (Fair Park), San Francisco CA (Golden Gate Park) and Los Angeles CA (Santa Monica Pier).

The 2008 Green Apple Festival

·         Is one of the largest Earth Day gatherings in U.S. history

·         Presents 8 simultaneous events at landmark parks across the country on April 20, 2008

·         Is located in parks, rather than concrete venues, chosen with eco-considerations such as easy foot/bike access and public transportation

·         Will “green” over 150 music venues over Earth Day Weekend in each Green Apple city

·         Is produced in partnership with Earth Day Network, founders of the original “Earth Day” in 1970

Each festival will invite nonprofit environmentally friendly organizations to promote new eco-friendly technology and green products. And, the more than 1,000 acts performing will be encouraged to speak about Earth Day from the stage.  Bands will also be asked to make a donation to an environmentally oriented charity.

The Green Apple Festival is produced with as small a carbon footprint as possible. How do they accomplish this green goal?  They have mandated a paperless event; use organic cotton t-shirts for staff; bio-diesel generators for power where they can; serve organic food and encourage patrons to take public transport, bike or get to the events on foot.

Last year's Green Apple Festival, billed as the largest carbon-neutral event of its kind, was held in New York, Chicago and San Francisco with artists such as Bob Weir & Ratdog, the Decemberists, Taylor Hicks, Stephen Marley and the Kaiser Chiefs, among many others.

52 days until Earth Day…why not take a bite of the green apple?

~Melissa

The Earth's Hour

What will you be doing on March 29, 2008 at 8 pm?  I hope you will be sitting in the dark and participating in Earth Hour 2008.  Last year, the people of Sydney, Australia (2.2 million people) turned off their lights for one hour – Earth Hour.  As a result, there was a reduction of Sydney’s energy consumption by 10.2%.  There were weddings by candlelight (a nice idea, even if it wasn’t Earth Hour) and even the Opera House turned off its famous lights, changing the Sydney’s Harbor beautiful skyline (but well worth it). As this idea catches the attention (and more importantly, participation) of more and more cities around the world, just imagine what Earth would like from space during that hour.

Here’s a summary straight from the web site, “World Wildlife Fund's Earth Hour is catching on across America following the tremendous success of last year's event in Sydney, Australia. This global phenomenon will spread across six continents in 2008, including hundreds of communities like yours in the United States. Chicago will serve as the U.S. flagship city for Earth Hour in 2008, with Atlanta, Phoenix and San Francisco joining as leading partner cities. But everyone throughout the US and around the world is invited and encouraged to turn off their lights for an hour on March 29 at 8 p.m. local time--whether at home or at work, with friends and family or solo, in a big city or a small town.”

Check out this video and for more info about how to get involved and to spread the word about Earth Hour 2008, check out www.earthhour.org.

~Melissa