Earth Day 2008, will you do something about it?

On April 22nd millions of people will celebrate Earth Day, a special day when you should do something to show your support for fighting climate change. While there's no need to wait for a particular day to do something good for the environment (hence for The Earth), Earth Day has as a purpose promoting such environmental-friendly behaviors and remind people that we shouldn't live on Earth just like simple parasites - we have to give something good back to the nature. The official Earth Day website says it better and gives you clues on what you could do on this special day:

Since the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, Earth Day has been an annual event for people around the world to celebrate the earth and renew our commitment to building a safer, healthier and cleaner world for all of us. There are many ways you can get involved. Volunteer. Go to a festival. Install solar panels on your roof. Organize an event where you live. Change a habit. Help launch a community garden. Communicate your priorities to your elected representatives. The possibilities are endless! Do something nice for the earth, have fun, meet new people, and make a difference.

They've also set up a location where they list events that are going to take place in cities all over the world, so if you have some time to do something on April 22nd why not participate in such an event: Worldwide Earth Day 2008 Events
I use a bike daily to go to work, but tomorrow I'll participate in a peaceful Critical Mass event.

Of course Google wouldn't let this event pass by without making a difference. Tomorrow they'll change their logo to a special Earth Day 2008 Google logo that will most likely link to the official Earth Day website, or to the website Google specially set up for this occasion: What will you do for Earth Day '08?
On their special Earth Day website they've set up a way for you to share your feedback on what you're going to do for your planet.

Not only you can leave a simple text message, but you can add an YouTube video with what you'll do (or did) and also if you'll use Google Checkout to donate money to an environmental non-profit on behalf of your friends a marker will be added to the Google Maps mashup they did on that page - if your friends will donate too, they'll be linked to your marker and you'll be able to track how your generosity spreads (you might need to try a little later given that right now they return the "Google Checkout is temporarily unavailable at this time. Please check back again in a moment" - too many donations maybe?).

We can sum up all this to a couple of things you could do for your community in particular, and for the Earth in general:

• Don't use a polluting car (electrical ones are ok), if not in general, at least tomorrow - there are other ways to go to work/school: walk, use a bike, and if not use the public transportation
• Consume less. Unless your body works different than anyone's else and you consume CO2 instead of eliminating it, don't consume much of anything on Earth Day. You can reduce the electricity usage (go for a walk instead of watching a movie), water (take a short shower, not a long bath), food (eat an apple for dinner, not a hamburger) or pretty much reduce the usage of anything else that is in a way affecting the natural resources.
• Donate to environmental non-profits. Be it Greenpeace or Earth Day Network, they'll all appreciate your effort.

While there's many other things you can do, the most important one is to do something for your Earth - you've heard lots of things about climate changes, pollution and how all of these affect the Earth, but just so you know our planet will always survive, it's the future of the humankind that has a question mark.
[Update]: Google added indeed a special Google Earth Day 2008 logo:

They've also released an Energy Saver Google Gadget (for Google Desktop) that lets you save energy by optimizing the power management settings:


YouTube goes green-logoed too, and shows us 5 easy ways of going green:


Nevertheless Google Docs also gives an example on how using online documents helps save paper - which enventually helps the planet by cutting less trees. The idea of a paperless office is not new, so try using online documents (portable ones, like PDF) whenever possible, instead of printing to paper.