Modern Hiker

Anyone have any interesting Earth Day activities planned for this Sunday?

Southern California seems to have its fair share of events going on, from the usual festivals and coast clean-ups to an attempt at the World’s Largest Hug in Laguna Beach.

Earth Day LA has a comprehensive, city-by-city list of what’s going down, when and where, although I have a feeling I’ll be doing my own thing with a peaceful solo mountain hike.

Last year, I went down to San Diego’s EarthWorks in Balboa Park, which had a great mix of folk music and cutting-edge solar and home-grown electric automobile technologies on display.

If you end up going to a festival, just make sure you remember that this is about more than just drinking organic cold cider while you listen to a family bluegrass band and get warm fuzzies from picking up a pamphlet on solar heating. Whatever lifestyle changes you’re inspired to make have to happen year-round to make a difference. And they don’t even have to be drastic to have an impact (see, CFLs below).

Oh, and make sure you’ve got your patchouli tolerance beefed up.