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Beijing has raced to improve its air quality before August 8, crude oil just hit a new high at $117 a barrel, and a huge chunk of Antarctic ice just fell off right into the water (apparently it was seven times the size of Manhattan). Earth Day seems more important now than ever before.

There are demonstrations, celebrations, protests, new ad campaigns and all sorts of activities about how each of us can make a difference, make a change, save the world, save the animals, save the forests and save ourselves. In case you haven’t done your part yet, check out a few of the sights below that will give you some ideas on what to do next:

• http://www.earthday.net
• http://www.saveourplanet.org
• http://www.wecansolveit.org
• http://www.ecorazzi.com

Here’s the deal people - we love stuff. We love to buy stuff, hold stuff, look at stuff and dream of stuff. We are a culture of STUFF.

Those of us, in the business of communicating, are stuff experts. We entice people to buy more of it. That’s okay, I’m proud to be a stuff expert. However, the question for our time is this:  how do you sell more stuff while responsibly communicating about all things Earth Day?

To explore the answer to the question above, we did a study. It’s called Map 2: AspEn. Aspirational Environmentalism. Within the pages of Map 2 we look at green communication from around the globe to try to understand visually where we are today and where we might go tomorrow. It’s one of my favorite projects of all time, it’s about the human condition and how we all communicate about stuff we need vs. stuff we desire.

So go check it out. Don’t print it out. Drink from your recyclable coffee cup. Plant a tree. And go celebrate Mother Earth!