Party for Earth – Earth Day 2011 Festival by Ground-Up Initiative [Events]

About Earth Day 2011 Festival

With the theme “A Beautiful Connection” it aims to reconnect people to the land while inspiring them with art, music and cultural mediums orchestrated by artists.

This event is free of admission to the public. It will be a full-day event at Bottle Tree Park, in Yishun, with creative workshops, art performances and a market place consisting of merchandise (organic, natural and eco-friendly) and plant-based food stalls.

These activities are designed to put across the message of environmental sustainability and the importance of sustainable practices. From engaging human senses in appreciation of Nature to participating to hands-on activities, everyone will get to play a part, no one will be a bystander!

Title of Event: Party for Earth
Date: 22nd April 2011 (Good Friday)
Time: 09:30 – 18:00
Venue: Bottle Tree Park, Yishun, at 81 Lorong Chencharu Singapore 769198 (10min walk from Khatib MRT station)
Cost: Free Admission
Website: http://earthdaysg.blogspot.com/
Contact: earthdaysg@gmail.com or Kian Seng 91120517 Read more

How Asians Can Encourage Facebook to Unfriend Coal by Earth Day

Greenpeace is campaigning to get Facebook to unfriend coal by Earth Day, April 22, and Asians can help to encourage Facebook too.

Greenpeace’s Unfriend Coal campaign wants Facebook to:

• Increase the use of clean energy to make Facebook coal free
• Develop a plan to make Facebook coal free by 2021
• Educate users about how Facebook powers its services and its carbon footprint
• Advocate for clean energy at a local, national and international level

Facebook announced last year that it is building a new energy efficient data centre to serve the hundreds of millions of its users, but the company plans to run it on electricity from burning coal, which is the most carbon intensive fossil fuel and also very pollutive. Greenpeace believes that Facebook can move away from coal and switch to clean energy, and influence the rest of the IT sector to do likewise. Read more

Think about systemic actions this Earth Day

Earth Day is on 22 April and there will be many who would get together and do something for the environment. For this coming Earth Day, we want to share what Alex Steffen and Sarah Rich of WorldChanging wrote last year titled “Make This Earth Day Your Last!“:

Earth Day has served its time, and it must go. The biggest problem with Earth Day is that it has become a ritual of sympathy for the idea of environmental sanity. Small steps, we’re told, ignoring the fact that most of the steps most frequently promoted (returning your bottles, bringing your own bag, turning off the water while you brush your teeth) are of such minor impact (compared to our ecological footprints) that they are essentially meaningless without larger, systemic action as well.

The myth of individual lifestyle responsibility is so strong, most of us don’t even comment on it anymore. But in many ways, it’s a lie. What most needs to be changed in the world are the systems in which we are all enmeshed, and we ourselves, acting alone, are almost powerless to change those systems. To do that, we need better information, stronger connections and new ways of thinking.

This Earth Day, let’s reflect on what we have been doing for the environment. It’s time to think about how to take more systemic actions.