Image by Ian Davenport

Earth Day was alway kind of a mock event as a kid ( full of planting seeds in water bottles, and Captain Planet specials). But the environmental issue has come a long way, and while it’s Earth Day, the Earth has had its fair share of attention this year as a whole. Green alternatives, developments, spin and even whole movements have sprung up to address the issue of sustainability in our daily lives. Here are a few stand out examples for you on this, the earthiest of days.

Technology: Flock

A new browser that integrates social networking sites into your browser is launching today with an “Eco-Edition” browser. Where does the eco-ness come from? Flock will donate 10% of the revenue generated by searches to a green organization up user vote at year end. The browser also comes pre-configured with green sites, blogs, and media feeds

Movement: Adam Werbach’s Blue movement

His claim–that environmentalism is dead. Quite a poke at the green hornet’s nest, especially by the former Sierra Club president. But while there’s been quite the bit of backlash, the Blue movement has interesting (if controversial) concepts. According to Adam, at its heart, BLUE is a lifestyle movement that asks people to create personal sustainability practices and translate them into the things they buy. That seems like saying, “shop your way out of it” but it’s more about balancing four dimensions of sustainability; social, cultural, environmental, and economic, through personal actions. We kinda like it, balance being the key. The question is now, Blue the new Green? You can read his intro on the movement on Grist here and an interview with him here.

Marketing: Exxon sponsorship of the Williamsburg Go Green Festival

It’s enough spin to make one feel as nauseas as the tea cup ride. It’s not so much the hipsters that are the problem as the relentless corporate green scensters courting. Of course, we’re proponents of companies making profit while making change–the eco-friendly products, services, and marketing dollars of many companies have done amazing things for the green movement. But it’s moves like Exxon’s sponsorship of the Go Green Festival in Williamsburg that gives corps a bad name. Maybe they should have cleaned up that huge oil spill they left behind (bigger than the Exxon Valdez) before they held their festivities on top of it. Trash a place and run–that’s bad enough. But to come back for the party? That’s going too far my friend. (If you haven’t seen the series Vice did on the topic, catch up on the episodes here).

Protocols: Good ol’ Kyoto

While generally considered a bust b/c of the US’ refusal to play ball, recent statistics reported that 1,000 projects in 49 countries have “saved” carbon dioxide emissions of 135 million tons, and are expected to “save” a total of 1.2 billion tons of CO2 by the end of 2012, when Kyoto’s first mandate period ends (Norway emits about 54 million tons annually). The good news: 2,000 CDM projects in the pipeline, and if all these manage to get verified, the UN estimates 2.7 billion tons of CO2 will be saved. The bad news: the world emits more than 8 billion tons of carbon from fossil fuel burning annually, and some scientists say we’ve got to get to near zero man-made emissions to stabilize a cooler climate.

Advertising: Wind Power

Our favorite earth friendly ad of the year.

The movement’s seen quite a revolution, though part of me thinks the original environmentalists laid the fertile groundwork for their captain planet watching, Styrofoam hating kids to help create the existing movement. The hope is that we can keep up the good work. There’s still a plenty to be done, but for today, get out, touch some dirt, drink some water, take a deep breath and get inspired for next steps. The power is yours.