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Seven Earth Day 2014 Stories Worth Reading

1. From PBS: American Masters: A Fierce Green Fire premieres tonight.
Written and directed by Mark Kitchell (Berkeley in the Sixties), this is the most in-depth exploration of the the history of the environmental movement ever put on film. It documents efforts to block dams from the Grand Canyon, Greenpeace, and the Love Canal case. The film is narrated by Robert Redford, Ashley Judd, Van Jones, Isabel Allende and Meryl Streep.
(See trailer at bottom.)

2. From NASA: Make a #GlobalSelfie with NASA on Earth Day
"The year 2014 is a big one for NASA Earth science. Five NASA missions designed to gather critical data about our home planet are launching to space this year. NASA is marking this big year for Earth science with a campaign called Earth Right Now, and as part of this campaign the agency is asking for your help this Earth Day, April 22.
While NASA satellites constantly look at Earth from space, on Earth Day we're asking you to step outside and take a picture of yourself wherever you are on Earth. Then post it to social media using the hashtag #GlobalSelfie."

3. From National Geographic: Earth Day Pictures: 20 Stunning Shots of Earth From Space
This is all eye candy, but in context produce feelings of awe appropriate to the holiday.

4. From Space.com: Lyriad Meteor Shower Peaks on Earth Day.
“Earth is treating its inhabitants to quite a show for Earth Month. First came a Mars closeup and a Blood Moon, and now the 2014 Lyrid meteor shower. The annual fireball show is already underway, and it's expected to continue for more than a week — with the peak arriving Earth Day, April 22.”

5. From HuffPo: The U.S. Has Gotten A Lot Hotter Since The First Earth Day
This not quite hysterical piece includes an interactive graphic, unfortunately skewed to produce the steepest looking curve possible. (Yes, we are aware that the earth is warming AND that humans are responsible AND that drastic steps need to be taken to slow the trend. But fearmongering doesn't help.)

6. From HuffPo: Pat Robertson Says Doomsday Asteroid Could Hit Next Week
Found in the sidebar of the scary global warming piece. Self-aware irony? Probably not.

7. From the Breakthrough Institute: Liberals and Progressives for Nuclear Energy
The lengthening list of pro-nuke greens includes former Whole Earth Review editor Stewart Brand, Sen. Al Franken, Friends of the Earth founder Hugh Montefiore, New Yorker writer Hendrick Hertzberg, Pres. Barack Obama, and the Dalai Lama, who says: "There are still many developing countries with a huge gap between rich and poor…millions of people’s lives remain under the poverty level and we have to think about these people...Just to look at [nuclear energy] from one side then to make a decision is not right."

Bonus: From every news outlet with an online presence: Earth Day 2014: Google celebrates Earth Day with doodles of Rufous hummingbird, veiled chameleon, moon jellyfish, dung beetle, puffer fish and macaques
Want to pull traffic to your website? Write about whatever’s in the Google Doodle. Um …. ahem … yeah.

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