Wednesday, April 22, is the 39th annual Earth Day awareness celebration.

Back in 1970, when the sandal-wearing free-spirit hippie types first started this grass-roots celebration, I think people sort of laughed about it, but the era was a turbulent one with wars in the East, gas prices out of control, and rolling blackouts across the country.

Many people forgot about the conservation effort during the decadent 80s and 90s, and here we are again facing the same issues. Was it Santa Ana who said something like if we don’t learn from our mistakes we’re destined to repeat them?

Back in 1970, to commemorate the first  Earth Day, my old high school graduating class proudly labored in the hot sun for a week turning a slab of dry dead turf  into a cool eco-garden complete with algae, frogs, and various living organisms. When I went back for my 20-year reunion, that eco-garden had been cemented over. A testimony to the 1990s.

Little did we know in the 1970s how much we would depend on our electronics to get by every day in this new century. Today, we’ve become quite aware of energy conservation again and how much energy we waste.

But we video producers understand this as we  are a power hungry sort… we are always pulling power from some source for our myriad of gadgets, machines, and devices. In honor of the upcoming Earth Day, here are a few tips to help save and conserve sent to us from Greg Spector and Retrevo: Read the rest of this entry »