By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Google went green and so did dozensof comic strips while President George W. Bush planted a treeon Tuesday to mark Earth Day, an environmental event that hasbecome increasingly political and corporate.
Thirty-eight years after Earth Day began as a series ofgrass-roots "teach-ins" about environmental conservation andpollution, April 22 has become an occasion to focus attentionon human-generated climate change and the policies around it --a topic not on the public mind in 1970.
The method for getting the message across has certainlyevolved. Google.com's online search site featured a lush logowith letters made of moss-covered boulders, a tree sproutingfrom the "L" and a waterfall flowing beneath it. Clicking onthe image led to a list of Earth Day-related sites.
The comics pages in many U.S. newspapers featured stripswith environmental themes. "Zippy The Pinhead" was typical: theshort-sighted residents of Dingburg save the Earth by packingdirt into suitcases and keeping them in a storage locker.
Bush was in New Orleans for the so-called "Three Amigos"summit with leaders from Canada and Mexico, where the U.S.president planted an oak tree in Lafayette Square -- a symbolicreplanting of the some 250,000 trees stripped away from thecity by 2005 hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
PLAN TO RAISE FUEL EFFICIENCY
The Bush administration, which has weathered criticism forits stand on environmental issues, offered a plan on Tuesday toboost fuel economy for cars and trucks to cut U.S. dependenceon foreign oil and curb greenhouse gas emissions.
The plan would require the U.S. and international fleet toaverage 32 miles per gallon (13.6 km per litre) by 2015. Theenergy bill Bush signed in December requires that autos average35 miles per gallon (14.9 km per litre) by 2020, a 40 percentincrease over the current standard.
On the presidential campaign trail, Democrats Sen. BarackObama and Sen Hillary Clinton and Republican Sen. John McCainoffered statements urging a focused U.S. environmental andenergy policy.
"Our leaders in Washington have to put what's right for ourplanet ahead of what's good for their friends in the energyindustry," Obama, an Illinois senator, said in a statement onthe day of the presidential primary in Pennsylvania, where heis in a tight race with Clinton of New York.
"I will end the Bush administration's assault onenvironmental protections and standards," Clinton said. "...Itwill be a new day."
"We must have the courage to realistically confront thespectre of climate change," McCain said in his statement. "Thisis one of the greatest challenges confronting the nextpresident."
LAWS AND LIGHTBULBS
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, joined by fellow membersof Congress and religious leaders, marked the day by helpingplant an elm tree outside the U.S. Capitol.
"We can make a difference," said Pelosi, a CaliforniaDemocrat who has taken a lead in addressing global warming. "Itis a national security issue, it is an economic issue, it is anenvironmental and therefore a health issue, and it is a moralissue."
In a separate move, Democratic Reps. Ed Markey ofMassachusetts, Henry Waxman of California and Jay Inslee ofWashington state said any effective climate-change law mustreduce emissions to avoid dangerous global warming, shift theUnited States to clean energy, minimize the law's economicimpacts and aid communities and ecosystems at risk from globalwarming.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, under fire fromcritics who contend the agency has failed to curb thegreenhouse gas emissions from fossil-fuelled vehicles that spurclimate change, launched a national campaign aimed at cuttingemissions in U.S. homes.
Participants in the program include Amazon.com, Best Buy,Hewlett-Packard, Lowe's, Menards, Sears, and Subway, the agencysaid in a statement.
The Washington Post, noting the change in the celebrationfrom previous years, wrote a tongue-in-cheek essay declaringEarth Day dead: "What killed it? A long but admirable strugglewith celebrity piety and corporate baloney, mainly."
(Editing by Philip Barbara)
(For more Reuters information on the environment, seehttp://blogs.reuters.com/environment/ )