The first time I heard about Earth Day, I was a ninth grade high school student. Flyers promoting environmental consciousness were being plastered on bulletin boards through-out the school. April 22nd, the newly proclaimed Earth Day was also my birthday and I wasn’t too keen on sharing it with Mother Earth. In retrospect, I suppose it wasn’t as bad as those unfortunate souls whose birthdays fell on Christmas or New Year’s, but still it was annoying. I certainly didn’t expect it to have legs. Then again, I was sure the Rolling Stones would be modestly famous for only a short time. Who knew?
Aside from the mild annoyance of co-opting my birthday, I never gave Earth Day or environmentalism much thought… at least when I was younger. However, the vegetable gardening class I took as a freshman in college (yes, vegetable gardening and don’t laugh I almost flunked) eventually took root and I planted my own garden several years ago. Friends began talking about organic foods while family members became actively engaged in promoting alternate sources of energy.
It seemed that environmental consciousness was going mainstream. Companies like Seventh Generation and Stonyfield Farm were starting to become increasingly well known. Al Gore and his much publicized “An Inconvenient Truth” probably acted as a catalyst, but much may be attributable to the maturation of America.
Since we at VeraQuest are in a unique position to access and share the attitudes and opinions of people nationally and abroad, we decided to launch VeraGreen, a report that touches upon what Americans think and how they feel about the environmental issues they’re facing today.
We will be taking a deeper dive into some of the topics discussed in the weeks to come, but feel free to check out the report and share it with anyone you think might be interested.
Leave a Reply