Embracing Earth Day

EARTH DAY EVENTS

When: Today

and Tuesday

Where: Sonoma

State University

Earth Day kickoff: Associated Student Productions will hold an Earth Day awareness "Super Nooner." Students will paint pots and plant flowers outside Darwin Hall from noon-2 p.m. today. Free pizza and live music will be provided.

Earth Day recognition: Green Campus, ASP and other clubs will staff tables around campus. There also will be guest speakers and live music. All day Tuesday.Dozens of children surrounded the stage Sunday on the Windsor Town Green in celebration of Earth Day.

In their hands, they held garbage, saved from the landfill and carefully crafted into musical instruments.

The Santa Cruz band ZunZun led the symphony of refuse.

Plastic bottles were used as makeshift maracas. A Pringles potato chip can doubled as a drum, with an enthusiastic 8-year-old using a chopstick to bang out rhythm.

"It's a lesson in reuse," said Susie Dalton, a Healdsburg mother who looked on.

Her 7-year-old son, Graham, was among throngs of children crafting instruments and toys out of discarded cereal boxes, paper towel rolls and other waste leftover from modern living.

The event was part of Windsor's first Earth Day celebration. It attracted about 500 people and 40 vendors.

Like most local Earth Day events, it was held over the weekend, coming two days before Earth Day is actually observed April 22.

Among the other events scheduled Sunday were a Santa Rosa Creek cleanup, an "earth elders" celebration in Sebastopol and a west county event featuring Gil Grosvenor, chairman of the National Geographic Society board of trustees.

People want to celebrate Earth Day more than just one day, said Eva Corbin, a city employee who organized the Windsor event.

Since Earth Day began 38 years ago, the ideas of conservation, reuse, and sustainable living have moved from the fringe to the mainstream. More than two decades of children have been taught the importance of these concepts.

"I grew up with all that," said Weston Grandt, a 17-year-old junior at Windsor High School. "And it made me want to study the environment."

He and other students from an environmental studies class used a bicycle-powered generator to demonstrate how much less energy LED and fluorescent lights require than traditional incandescent bulbs.

Older generations also have embraced conservation as county governments struggle to find space for new landfills, gas prices spiral ever higher and supplies of natural resources such as copper are stretched thin.

"There is definitely more interest in renewable energy," said Jerry Schafer, owner of Windsor-based Affinity Energy, which supplies solar and wind energy products. "In large part, that's because it makes economic sense now with rising costs."

Schafer had a booth at Sunday's event, and the day before he showcased his company at the Napa Valley's annual Earth Day celebration.

Sunday's vendors varied from Wal-Mart and PG&E to the Bird Rescue Center and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. More people and companies recognize the importance of sustainable practices, said Corbin, who began organizing the event in January.

"It's important to conserve our natural resources, our environment and to continue educating our children," she said.

You can reach Staff Writer Nathan Halverson at 521-5494 or nathan.halverson@

pressdemocrat.com.