Industry sees green

Wednesday, April 23, 2008 | 2:06 a.m.

About the only way to avoid knowing that Tuesday was Earth Day would have been to live in another country.

And even that might not have been enough.

When environmental activists set aside April 22 as Earth Day in 1970, it was to call attention to how industry and consumerism were affecting the air, water and land. Corporate America was the villain out to make a buck at the expense of the air that little Johnny breathed.

Three decades and change later, environmentalists told The Wall Street Journal that Earth Day has now become just another item for corporate America to sell. Earth Day has evolved into “Earth Week” or even “Earth Month.”

Who is hopping on the green bandwagon? Disney this week announced the launch of the Disneynature film label, which will be devoted to making feature-length nature documentaries. Anheuser-Busch is airing ads this week in which employees discuss the company’s commitment to the environment. And on Friday — just ahead of Earth Weekend — LexisNexis bragged that it is “contributing to the ‘green’ movement” through a service that allows law firms and courts to exchange documents online to save paper.

As the Journal notes, however, LexisNexis failed to mention that the program’s conservation effort is years old and represents about 0.004 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions produced annually by the paper industry.

Denis Hayes, coordinator of the first Earth Day in 1970, told the Journal that this new Earth Day found Americans driving their SUVs to the grocery store and using canvas tote bags to purchase organic milk. “If they never move beyond the canvas bags, then we’ve done a belly-flop,” Hayes said.

Perhaps. But it seems that thousands of people switching to canvas bags would do something to reduce the overall number of plastic bags. Maybe the SUV driver could invite a fellow shopper to carpool. Massive change can occur with baby steps, as long as they are taken every day and not just on Earth Day.