Max Gladwell

Earth Day 2008: Free concerts are nice. But the green landscape is being transformed by markets and social media.

My first Earth Day celebration was in 1990 in Central Park for the 20th anniversary event. For better or worse, it was was my introduction to green.

This was senior year of high school, and an impressive roster of bands, including the B-52s, were part of a free concert event. The number of people who turned out was staggering. Hundreds of thousands. It could have been a million. Did I mention it was free? In between bands, someone would preach about environmental issues and rail against the Bush administration. Indeed, it seems like just yesterday. All in all, it was a pretty inspiring experience, save for the impact of a million people descending on Central Park. This was the dawn of my idealistic stage, full of hope and optimism. It felt good, even if only lasted a brief couple years.

In those days (yes, “those days”), green was largely the providence of activists, those who pursued their causes as missions exclusively for their own sake. The battles were mostly up hill, and the rewards were largely intangible. Conservation, sustainability, and efficiency just didn’t pay like they can today. There weren’t markets for these otherwise virtuous principles. You couldn’t build a business model, let alone an entire industry, around being green because it was all cost and no return. Nonprofit was the only way to go, and that only gets you so far in a market-driven economy. Energy prices were also at historic lows. The Soviet Union was still in tact, though faltering from defeat in Afghanistan. The world was far from flat, meaning that the U.S. was insulated from the rest of the world, and global warming barely registered as a concern. We knew that the environment was important, but we weren’t entirely cognizant of the threat, let alone what to do about it. And even if we had been, the channels for pursuing social and political change were inefficient at best. Which is to say they were controlled by the same interests that fought to maintain  status quo.

Since “those days”, the world has changed profoundly. We’ve made revolutionary advancements in technology and communications, together with historic geopolitical progress. Even so, with the exception of a few successes, the state of our health and that of the environment have been on a steady decline. As a result, the threats we now face have become more clearly defined than ever before. We know the stakes and the cost of inaction. We’re feeling the consequences and just starting to pay the price. Unlike days past, though, we have a new set of tools. Today, green is being driven by the efficiencies of capital markets and the unparalleled reach of social media. For the first time in history, control is truly shifting from governments, corporations, and institutions to people. And that’s how real change–transformational change–happens. So we say, “Power to the people on Earth Day 2008.” It’s time to give hope and optimism another chance.

–Max Gladwell

Related Posts

• Your Subscription to the Social Web
• good2gether Debuts Boston.com Do Good Channel
• Timberland Partners with Changents on Web 2.0 Strategy
• Be a Beacon: The First Principle of Social Media
• We All Scream for Social Media