The comics pages go "green" for Earth Day on Tuesday as 46 cartoon strips, from Blondie and Family Circus to Mutts and Zippy the Pinhead try to save the planet, one panel at a time.
"Killer is out hugging trees," Zero reports in Beetle Bailey.
"We'd like to talk to you about your carbon footprint," the Hagar gang tells a giant.
Blondie urges the family to conserve energy. "Absolutely," says Dagwood, who jumps on the couch for a nap.
The Earth Day effort is being coordinated by the King Features syndicate, which runs comics and features in almost 5,000 newspapers around the world.
"The number of cartoonists who responded to this call is thrilling," says Brendan Burford, the syndicate's comics editor. "We have a few cartoonists who are green all the time."
One is Alex Hallatt, whose Arctic Circle strip chronicles the endangered lives of penguins and polar bears at the North Pole. "I try to see the funny side of being green," says Hallatt, who concedes she has trouble living totally green. "I still have a car. It's difficult, isn't it?" she says. "But whenever there's that conflict between modern life and going green, there's a great potential for humor."
Themed comics pages have become more frequent in recent years as cartoonists have remembered 9/11 or honored the late Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts.
"Cartooning is such an isolated world," says Patrick McDonnell, whose Mutts strip will offer earth-friendly quotations this week. "So when we all band together like this, it's really kind of magical."
An event to mark the day April 22 was Earth Day. It is a tradition started by United States Senator Gaylord Nelson with the first Earth Day in April 1970. Earth Day Canada was started in 1990.

In Central Park, New York, the "Green Apple festival" marked the event. In Buenos Aires an "an entertainment event with an awareness component."

An earth fair was also held in Catalunya, Spain. The earth day website says that "the theme for this year's edition is the Fight Against Genetically Modified Organism which Poison the Planet."

Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, also held an event to mark the day. This event is similar to an event last year that marked last year's earth day.

Another image of the events There were also events to mark the day in Caracas, Venezuela. The Earth Day website said "youth groups from Universities will make a vow as Citizens of the World and will launch Beja Contest 2008," in its description of these events.

There were also events in Chicago. According to the Earth Day website, Lincoln Park Zoo hosted some of these events.

Events in Tokyo, Japan also marked the day. The Earth Day website says that the "booth and Event Area within Yoyogi Park" hosted the event.

Other places across the world also marked the day. The Earth day website says that "Earth Day 2008 is expected to be the biggest yet, From Tokyo to Togo, to our flagship event on the National Mall in Washington, DC and 7 other U.S. cities, we will be galvanizing millions of people around the world behind a Call for Climate, our global warming action theme. "

Jim Connaughton, the chairman of Council on Environmental Quality for the US government, described Earth Day and explained how it was founded. Below is his description:




Connaughton also described what George W. Bush is doing to mark the event: