When Earth Day started in 1970, one of Georgia's leading politicians tried to warn President Nixon, state governors and other national leaders that it was a Communist plot in disguise.

His reasoning? April 22 is also the birthday of Vladimir Lenin, founder of Soviet-style Communism.

File photo/AJC (ENLARGE)

Kids play with an Earth Ball on Earth Day.

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The next year, on the first anniversary of the annual event, a chagrined Jimmy Bentley, Georgia's late comptroller general, told The Atlanta Journal, "My only concern last year was that a bunch of kooks, hippies and nuts would pull Earth Day out of focus."

No such accusations are being hurled at Earth Day 2008.

Instead, the establishment has embraced it. Marketing has replaced marching. Corporations, local governments and civic groups underwrite festivals, organize park clean-ups and hold eco fairs to teach people how to lighten their carbon footprint.

There's nothing wrong with that, said Denis Hayes, national coordinator of that first Earth Day in 1970.

In a telephone interview Monday, Hayes called the early days "feisty." It was a time when corporations were "mostly trying to hide what they were doing," said Hayes, now president and chief executive officer of a foundation in Seattle that funds environmental nonprofit groups in the Pacific Northwest.

"We were taking on the entire establishment," he said.

The 1970s saw the passage of a wave of federal laws to protect the environment, including the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and Endangered Species Act.

"The establishment has now more or less embraced those [pro-environment] values," Hayes said.

Hayes cited Interface, a Georgia-based carpet tile company, as an example of a corporation that lives Earth Day year-round by reducing its greenhouse gas emissions and water use.

Beyond the big events, like last weekend's SweetWater 420 Festival in Atlanta's Candler Park that drew crowds for live music, beer and sunshine, there are many smaller gatherings by schools and community groups who are picking up litter, planting trees or pledging to carpool, take public transit or ride a bike to work.

Neill Herring, a Sierra Club lobbyist who was just a year out of Georgia State University when the first Earth Day was celebrated, said caring about the environment is a populist issue. One of his measures of the impact is the number of Republican bumper stickers in the parking lots of Riverkeeper meetings around the state. The environmental advocacy group works to protect waterways.

"Local people are real interested in local environmental issues," Herring said.