The Monthly Newsletter of greenlight magazine

How did you celebrate Earth Day? It seemed like April was Earth Month, with all the events, the magazine cover stories, the television specials. I spent part of the day at the local farmer's market, where every Sunday year-round, business as usual, is Earth Day – on this day bulging with spring strawberries, fresh crab and oysters, peas in pods, a wonderful bounty all from within a few hundred miles at most. The farmers market movement is just one of many things we have to celebrate – while, of course, we're working to fix all that is going wrong too. Even more encouraging was an Earth Day breakfast in San Francisco, where we heard about the city's green progress (see just below) and even had a chance to meet the winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize – six heroes from around the world, fighting in the trenches to protect the world and inspire all of us.

Was your Earth Day equally inspirational? Let us know how you celebrated. Please click here.

—Bill Marken, editor in chief, greenlight magazine

P.S. Send us a video tour of your organic garden. Attach it to an email and we'll present the best submissions to readers in the future.

• Greening our cities
• A big eco-birthday
• More spring cleaning
• Green furniture
• Hang your laundry
• One green step at a time

It's great to see American towns and cities, small to large, stepping up to the challenge of conserving resources while providing the services many of us have become accustomed to. San Francisco (home to greenlight) hosted an Earth Day breakfast at which the city's environmental folks shared their progress, plans and dreams:

• One of America's greenest buildings, the California Academy of Sciences, is scheduled for completion in 2008.
• The city's new ban on plastic shopping bags is winning support. Carbon emissions are now below 1990 levels, but Mayor Gavin Newsom said the pace must step up to meet the 2012 goal.
• 69% of all trash in San Francisco is recycled.
• Diesel vehicles in the city's fleet are being replaced.
• Mayor Newsom even mentioned tapping into an environmentalist's dream: tidal energy, harnessing the power of waves entering San Francisco Bay.
• For more details on San Francisco's green strides forward, click here.

Jared Blumenfeld, director of San Francisco's Department of the Environment, gave his own recommendations for living an earth-friendly life. The key is simple, he said, "Link your own happiness to what is good for the earth." See his suggestions here.

• Buy less stuff.
• Live close enough to your work so you can walk or bike.
• Share a care.
• Buy local.
• Vacation nearby.
• Make Sunday a day of rest and renewal – not a day for working and shopping.

How green is your city now, what is it doing, what do you think it should do? Let us know and we'll share with readers. Please click here.

Reading Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" for the first time had the same impact on me as reading "Catcher in the Rye" as a 15-year-old. I don't mean that her book also made me sullen, cynical and non-communicative with my family. "Silent Spring", published in 1962, changed my life and gave many of us a new perspective on the world of nature. We learned that the "little" things we do – like spraying a rose with DDT – add up and irreparably tear apart the web of nature. Saint of the environmental movement, marine biologist and lyrical writer, Carson was born 100 years ago this month. It's a great time to look at what she did and what her lessons can teach us today. Honor Rachel Carson.

The U.S. Forest Service (Carson worked for them for 15 years) will hold events all around the country to honor the 100th birthday.

Perhaps the best way to honor Carson and appreciate her contributions is to read her books:

• "Silent Spring" is a classic that exposed the dangers of pesticides to the environment.
• "The Sea Around Us" was a surprise best seller in 1952, both scientific and poetic.
• "Courage for the Earth: Writers, Scientists, and Activists Celebrate the Life and Writing of Rachel Carson" is a brand new book, edited by Peter Matthiessen for this month's occasion.

Photograph of Rachel Carson by Shirley A. Briggs ©1949

You're not off the hook yet. There's still time for spring cleaning. After our tips in last month's newsletter, conscientious reader Paula reminds us, "Don't overlook those two wonderful cleaning standbys: baking soda and white vinegar. Used separately, or together, depending on what has to be cleaned, they are an awesome duo!" Here are a dozen+ ways to put the "awesome duo" to work.

Ronald and Lydia, two other thoughtful greenlight readers, set us straight on our use of terms signifying eco-friendly lumber used for furniture.

To be sure that outdoor and indoor furniture, as well as other wood products, are earth-friendly, look for FSC certification – endorsed by the Forest Stewardship Council.

To go deeper into the complicated forest of what's really green, start by checking out what The Wilderness Society has to say.

Reading the New Yorker (always a good source of environmental information, where "Silent Spring" as well as Elizabeth Kolbert's recent life-changing "Field Notes from a Catastrophe" were first published), I learned that Amory Lovins hangs his wash in his Colorado eco-smart home — indoors! Drying clothes indoors does take a while, but Lovins has other things to think about and do while he waits. He is an experimental physicist, the founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, and for at least three decades an influential advocate of resource efficiency and a "soft energy path."

Might we suggest a simple, straightforward outdoor system for using a clothes line to conserve energy – and to give your clothes that unmistakable fresh-dried fragrance?

On April 14, many thousands walked, marched, hiked and rallied to say, "Step it up Congress: cut carbon 80% by 2050".

Ford creates a new position of Vice President for Sustainability.

You can now buy organic pajamas at Wal-Mart.

Discovery Communications starts a new green channel.

Burger King will buy eggs and pork from suppliers that don't keep their animals in cages.

Visit the archives:
· Spring
· Summer
· Fall
· Winter

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