April 21st 2008
Long Island's role in Earth Day said to grow
(News Day)
When Adrienne Esposito started out as an environmental activist on Long Island, Earth Day celebrations were few in number and far from the mainstream.
"I'll tell you the truth, when I started doing this work 23 years ago, we were considered the fringe of society," she said. "There was apprehension and distrust. It wasn't fun."
Now? "There's been an extreme, radical change," said Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, whose group gets more invitations to participate in Earth Day events than it can accept. Now, "it's a mainstream celebration," she says.
Thirty-eight years after the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, commemorations on Long Island sprawl all over April and into May. Crowds have been steadily growing, organizers say. They cite growing concern over global warming and rising fuel costs and a growing acceptance, even embrace, of eco-friendly products.
Last year about 20,000 people went to the kid-friendly two-day fair at Heckscher State Park in East Islip, and similar numbers are anticipated next weekend.
Stony Brook University's 7-year-old Earthstock celebration last weekend had almost 100 exhibitors, live music, a labyrinth and demonstrations of a model solar house and green vehicles.
Saturday, Nassau County hosted a lightbulb exchange in Levittown. Residents could trade in incandescent bulbs for energy-saving compact fluorescent bulbs. County Executive Thomas Suozzi said 1,485 people showed up: "At one point there was a line around the building."
Levittown is one of the first post-World War II suburbs and the county wants to turn it into a green showcase with residential energy audits and upgrades, said Brad Tito, Suozzi's environmental coordinator. (Tito said his boss will spend Earth Day, tomorrow, signing a law to promote eco-friendly government purchases and then planting potatoes at Old Bethpage Village Restoration's organic garden.)
Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy is touting continuing programs to convert the county's bus fleet to cleaner fuel and to use less paper in government buildings.
"There's a surprising amount of activity at the local government level," said Neal Lewis, executive director of the Neighborhood Network, a group advocating measures from energy efficiency to organic landscaping.
He noted that seven, soon to be eight, of the Island's 13 towns have enacted building codes promoting energy efficiency. But he said broad regulatory change is needed to make a real impact.
Referring to Long Island's increasing energy use and carbon dioxide emissions, Lewis said, "I just don't want to miss the fact that ... our carbon footprint is still going up every year."