A Vote for the Planet? : Ecology: ‘Earth Voice’ hopes to gather 1 billion endorsements for the environment, but some critics say it is little more than a self-aggrandizing PR effort.

Not long after Earth Day 1990, Chris Desser said she wasn’t interested in transforming the highly successful 20th-anniversary event into an annual affair.

“If it’s an annual holiday, the issues become trivialized and the advertising benefits become emphasized,” the former executive director of the resurrected event was quoted as saying.

Desser thus left the Earth Day legacy to others--and now her worst fears appear to be coming true: Critics charge the nonprofit group that currently promotes Earth Day as an annual worldwide celebration is cutting the heart out of the event’s ethos of thinking globally but acting locally and personally.

The group, Earth Day International, is about to kick off an ambitious campaign to get as many as 1 billion people--roughly one out of every five on the planet--to cast “a vote for the Earth.” The votes are to be in the form of endorsements for a one-sentence “covenant with the Earth” that promises a lifestyle kinder and gentler to the planet and that will offer support for a controversial United Nations environmental conference.

The covenant will be solemnized by simply signing a petition or by calling a 900 number that may charge up to $2 per minute. Except for paying for the telephone call, endorsers are not required to make a donation or to participate in any other way.

Representatives of Earth Day International, based in Victoria, British Columbia, say the covenant endorsements will be delivered to world leaders attending the so-called Earth Summit conference next June in Rio de Janeiro. The sheer volume of signatures, so the thinking goes, will encourage leaders to take international action on worsening environmental problems.

The $1.4-million campaign, to be called “Earth Voice,” will be fueled by T-shirt sales, receipts from the 900 number and fund-raising commercials in movie theaters and between cable-TV music videos.

John Quigley, who heads Earth Day International’s Los Angeles office, calls “Earth Voice” the first “global vote . . . for the sustainability of a world for our children.”

Some mainstream environmental groups--including the Audubon Society, the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council--say the campaign reaches out to people who otherwise would not be aware of the Earth Summit and its work. Those groups also will benefit by receiving covenant backers’ names for their mailing lists.

Others say the bid for mass appeal is at worst harmless--and potentially beneficial.

But Desser and others consider “Earth Voice” to be so devoid of substance that the likelihood of its having an impact on the quality of the environment is remote.

By contrast, Desser says the point of Earth Day 1990, which attracted 200 million participants in 140 countries, was to spur a decade of environmental activism. In connection with that event, Desser’s group and others sponsored a global binge of tree plantings, recycling rallies, hikes, teach-ins and other activities. Now, teachers in 120,000 American schools use Earth Day lesson plans, and more than 100 U.S. cities are developing local environmental ordinances.

But “Earth Voice,” Desser charges, is largely, if not entirely, symbolic.

“I fought like hell throughout Earth Day to keep it a grass-roots, activist-based effort,” she says. “Having spent so much time trying to keep the integrity of Earth Day intact, it’s a little bit troubling seeing what people have made of it.”

The first of its magnitude in 20 years, the conference, whose formal title is the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, is expected to attract more than 100 world leaders, including President Bush. But for all the hoopla likely to be generated, it’s not clear whether the gathering will achieve its goals of developing a world environmental action plan for the 21st Century and winning adoption of treaties to reduce global warming and preserve species diversity.

Conference organizers wrote the covenant, which recognizes “the crisis that exists in our relationship with the natural environment in which we dwell” and commits signers to make lifestyle changes that will “help make the Earth a secure and hospitable home.” Some covenant endorsements will be announced at a series of rock concerts in Rio during the conference, featuring the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and Eric Clapton.

Many non-governmental groups are so wary of the U.N. conference that they are organizing a parallel event in Rio to make sure their concerns are aired.

“I’m not excited about (‘Earth Voice’) because I’ve got serious doubts about what UNCED’s up to these days,” says David Brower, who is often described as the conscience of the environmental movement. “I’m afraid there will be a lot of milling around without getting the message out that the Earth’s in trouble.”

Meanwhile, the San Francisco-based U.S. Citizens Network, formed to help 250 organizations understand the agenda for the Earth Summit, is distributing information and updates on conference issues and helping to arrange opportunities for non-governmental groups to speak out at the simultaneous event while the world leaders are gathered.

“The 128 developing countries think of this as a development conference, while the developed countries are thinking about environmental issues,” says Catherine Porter, executive director of the U.S. Citizens Network. “The intersection of those two areas is the point of the conference and the point of conflict.”

But Earth Day International spokesman David Veniot defends the appeal to the masses.

“If people at the grass-roots level are aware of what’s going on in Rio and they express that, it would put pressure on the leaders who will be there to do the right thing,” Veniot contends.

If the 200 million participants in Earth Day 1990 can be turned “into 1 billion people and the specific focus is the Earth Summit, you can’t tell me that isn’t going to shake up some leaders who are down there,” he adds.

“Earth Voice” is not the only effort to create mass awareness of the conference or the issues to be dealt with there. Turner Broadcasting Co., for example, is developing a “Save the Earth Summit Special” and is devoting a large part of its first-quarter 1992 programming to the U.N. conference, says Barbara Pyle, vice president of environmental policy for the company.

Meanwhile, a key source of covenant votes in Canada and the United States will be the 900 number. Earth Day International expects to receive about $500,000 from the number, or about 10% of the revenues after expenses, Veniot says. The Big Blue Foundation, a Los Angeles advertising production company that is developing the promotional spots for the number, will collect about 80% of the money and the rest will be contributed to the Earth Summit conference.

Other financial support for “Earth Voice” will come from $100-a-plate Westside dinners, a celebrity billiards tournament, a line of Earth Day clothing and about a dozen other licensed products, including string bags and T-shirts, says Quigley.

Upcoming events include a Nov. 4 “Mirth for the Earth” benefit at the Laugh Factory in Hollywood and a worldwide kickoff in November or December with Maurice F. Strong, the UNCED secretary-general.

But Desser says public relations efforts aimed at creating an image of concern are evanescent. The only mass campaigns that accomplish anything of lasting impact are those associated with actions, she declares.

“People have an enormous amount of power, and when people are organized and united, it does carry a pretty powerful message,” she says. “But unless that message is tied to action and . . . consequences . . . then I just wonder whether it’s a useful way to spend your time and money.”