7th Gen Blog

It’s Earth Day. That annual rite of spring where everyone becomes an environmentalist for at least a moment or two. For those of us who prefer to wear the label year-round (and increasingly that’s most of us), it’s a fitting occasion to pause for a moment, get out the imaginary camera, and take a virtual snapshot of sorts of today’s moment in time.

Such photos can tell us more than might be thought. For the big picture itself can often be found hiding in the details that the smaller image captures. So as we open the shutter and capture the light, what does our Earth Day photo say? That people are talking. People are thinking. People are acting. Awareness is reaching critical mass. That, above all else, is the reason to celebrate. Change is arriving. Here are the latest clues:

Let’s begin with a simple question: Why Earth Day? Here are a million wonderful, beautiful, magnificent, miraculous reasons you won’t find anywhere else. And that’s literally only about the half of it.

Weird weather? Melting mountains? Perspiring permafrost? Soaring sea levels? Color me officially concerned. Which is why it’s heartening to find our fellow Americans at last waking up and smelling the climatological coffee.

Rumor has it that Oprah will be sniffing our toilet bowl cleaner this afternoon. Wednesday, she taped an Earth Day segment that covers "green cleaning." Guided through the ins and outs of the world of non-toxic housekeeping by Simran Sethi (recently highlighted in Vanity Fair for her work with Treehugger and the Sundance Channel), Oprah saw fit to celebrate Earth Day by teaching her millions of loyal viewers that green cleaning is essential to a healthy home and a safer planet.

Well, you never know what to expect next from Wal-Mart. Today, they announced a new “Live Better Index” in an e-mail:

This just in from Sarah T.:

One little tree makes a ton of difference. It’s a simple idea, and this is what it means: This year for Earth Day, Seventh Generation is partnering with two incredible non-profits to make tons and tons of difference in an area that needs it most. We’re joining forces with the Seed Collective and Replant New Orleans to promote urban reforestation in New Orleans.

It starts with SEED, an on-line experience developed by the Seed Collective, which employs wireless activism to create a reforestation-funding tool. Using your phone and your computer together you can support the replanting and regeneration of the urban forest ecosystem in New Orleans. Replant New Orleans, in collaboration with City Year and a host of volunteers, will plant real trees in New Orleans on Earth Day, April 22nd. Seventh Generation will donate one dollar to that cause for every virtual tree (up to 40,000!) that you grow using SEED.

Both of our partners bring a great deal of passion to their mission of regeneration and community involvement. On Earth Day, we’ll be bringing them together in New Orleans for a special day in which the Seed Collective will show all of the virtual trees that you grew and Replant New Orleans will get the Central City growing.

Everyone can help us grow (and plant!) these trees. All you need is a phone and an internet-connected computer. Here’s how it works: