世界地球日倡导绿色行为

2011年4月22日是第42个世界地球日，今年的主题是“珍惜地球资源，转变发展方式”。环保组织在地球日官网上发起了一个名为“十亿个绿色行动”的宣传活动，鼓励人们多采用绿色环保的生活方式，比如：将家中的灯泡换成节能灯、少用杀虫剂等。该活动发言人表示，数百万人小小的努力加在一起就会有很大的改观。自1970年设立地球日以来，环保组织已经促成了《清洁空气法》、《净水法案》以及《濒危物种法》等法律的颁布。今年，在地球日的发源地美国以及192个其他国家，环保组织都会举办游行、工作坊等各类活动宣传绿色理念。

If the environmental movement has a high holiday, Earth Day is it.

The annual effort to raise public awareness about the environment and inspire actions to clean it up marks its 41st anniversary on Friday, coinciding with the Christian Good Friday and Judaism's celebration of Passover.

In an effort dubbed "A Billion Acts of Green," organizers are encouraging people to observe Earth Day 2011 by pledging online at http://act.earthday.org/ to do something small but sustainable in their own lives to improve the planet's health -- from switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs to reducing the use of pesticides and other toxic chemicals.

"Millions of people doing small, individual acts can add up to real change," said Chad Chitwood, a spokesman for the umbrella group coordinating efforts.

There will be hundreds of rallies, workshops and other events around the United States, where Earth Day was born, and hundreds more overseas, where it is now celebrated in 192 countries.

In the United States the activities range from the premiere of the new film from the director of "Who Killed the Electric Car?" (it's called "Revenge of the Electric Car") at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York to a discussion about creating a green economy in 12 cities along the Gulf Coast, where this time last year residents were reeling from the effects of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

In the years since the first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970 the environmentalist movement made great strides with passage of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act and other groundbreaking laws.

But the bipartisanship that marked the birth of Earth Day -- it was sponsored in Congress by a Wisconsin Democrat named Gaylord Nelson and a California Republican named Pete McCloskey -- is often missing in discussions about environmental policy today.

Efforts to fight climate change by regulating greenhouse gases, for instance, face fierce resistance from many Republicans and members of the business community, who dispute the science supporting global warming and warn new rules to regulate emissions will kill jobs and raise energy costs.