This Earth Day wasn't a celebration and global party as it was in years past.  Earth Day now is about raising consciousness, educating people on crucial issues affecting our environment and individuals taking personal responsibility for bettering planet earth.

Years ago while living in NYC, I went to the Earth Day celebration in Central Park with a group of friends.  The B-52's headlined a jam-packed day of A & B list celebrities and musicians who performed for a very drunk and rowdy crowd.  I remember seeing photos on the news the next day of heaps of garbage and beer cans strewn all across the park. That saddened and confused me....this was after all, Earth Day and not Lollapalooza.  I'm so happy to say that we've come a long way. 

I'm proud of my generation - Generation-X - not only did we survive the mosh pit, we are now parents, productive members of society and major proponents of the Go Green movement.  We realized long ago that it was our obligation to leave our children and grandchildren a world without a hole in the ozone and clean rivers and streams in which to swim.

I've always been pretty environmentally conscious, feeding my daughter mostly organic food, recycling like a maniac, driving less and re-using everything possible. My new personal goal is to start a compost and grow more of my own vegetables. I'm psyched!!!!

However, the most important contribution our generation can make RIGHT NOW to protect the earth is to teach our parents and grandparents how to go green. Let me defend them for a minute - it isn't their fault. They just weren't raised on it and they didn't need to be aware of global warming....it didn't exist. 

I just returned from a week in Florida visiting my mom.  I realized that the biggest "non-green" culprits aren't the asswipes who STILL drive their hummers around town trying to pick up chicks.  The biggest offenders might very well be the "Greatest Generation". After all, they've survived the Great Depression, World Wars I, II, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, Nixon, the energy crisis of the 70's, the Cold War, 9/11 and now the Bush Administration.  After all that, what's one more plastic bottle in the trash? And surely choosing plastic over paper bags at the grocery store isn't going to kill anyone, anddon'tcallmeshirley.

On a recent trip to the grocery store, I was helping my mother in law pick out ingredients for chili. I selected all organic ingredients - beans, canned tomatoes, vegetables and organic ground beef that was free of hormones and antibiotics.  She was horrified!!  She pulled everything out of the cart and started putting the items back on the shelves. She told me that her chili would never "turn out" with organic ingredients. I realized right then and there that she didn't really know what organic food was.  I told her that organic simply meant was food the way nature intended for us to eat. She didn't care and I gave in. Pick your battles ladies!!

This week I watched my mom throwing a huge pile of plastic grocery store bags into the trash. She also refuses to drink water from a glass. She has to drink them out of the plastic bottles they come in. And since she drinks at least 64 oz of water daily, she goes through hundreds of these bottles every week. UGH.

So, to recap.....the next time you visit with your parents, make sure there's at least a recycle bin and that they know how to use it!