April 22, 2010 marked the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. I reflected on the stories of the first earth day initiated by Gaylord Nelson. The atmosphere was much different back then with environmentalists organizing national “teach-ins” in the United States to educate the public and companies about environmental issues. People boycotted companies blaming them and consumerism for much of the harm caused to the planet. Today, earth day has entered the mainstream and is celebrated everywhere including the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. This is a celebration that there is finally a market for environmental goods and services, brought about through a decades long battle waged by environmentally conscious citizens wanting a cleaner planet through responsible consumerism.
Blogs
Why IYCN opposes operation green hunt
Normally disclaimers are posted on the forums like website, google-group, print media and news channels. For the first time I’m writing a claimer. When we in Indian Youth Climate Network (IYCN) decided to endorse Independent People’s Tribunal (IPT) against forced displacement, land acquisition and operation green hunt, we were bombarded with lot of questions like: Why are we doing this? This is very sensitive issue, we should not touch it. Why IYCN and http://whatswiththeclimate.org are the bodies sending out and advertising the proceedings (of IPT), of course these things are tangentially related but it strikes odd and in some ways unsmart to be laying all this into IYCN.
World water day report
The report of our activites on the world water day has been uploaded here. Click here to download.
Taking cue from the water day activities, we are preparing for another important day, the world earth day. This year being the 40th anniversary of the earth day, millions of people across the world are coming together to observe it. We at IYCN plan to take forward some of the campaigns we have started for the water day and start similar campaigns across the country and also encourage others to be a part of the campaign.
More details to come soon.
Article on Ganga by Vimal Bhai
Dams or No Dams ? - Development for whom and at what cost ? These are few questions which Vimal Bhai (Mattu People's Organization) has tried to answer in his article about Ganga.