• by April 13, 2007

Forget about wasting paper: The greening of America is happening online.

Take the case of the Green Apple Music & Arts Festival, the second annual multi-city celebration of Earth Day set for April 20-22. The festival--featuring more than 200 live performances by artists including Dave Matthews, Willie Nelson, The Decemberists, The English Beat and the Kaiser Chiefs--is getting heavy promotion through online video running on CurrentTV, Treehugger.com, Lime.com and Jambase.com. Podcasts are running via iMeem and Relix magazine.

The Festival (www.greenapplefestival.com) is taking place at various venues in New York City, Chicago and San Francisco. Presenting sponsors are JPMorgan Chase, Tropicana Organic and Earth Day New York. The actual proceedings are not being broadcast online.

Among the free events on Earth Day, April 22, are performances in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park by legendary Grateful Dead vocalist Bob Weir and his band Ratdog, and Stephen Marley featuring Junior Gong and The Greyboy AllStars. At Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo performances by kids are planned including one by The Blisters, featuring Sam and Spencer, the children of Wilco's Jeff Tweedy. In New York's Central Park, children's act The Laurie Berkner Band with Susie Lampert and Adam Bernstein are slated to perform.

In each city, festival venues will feature environmentally friendly cups and straws; napkins and paper towels made of recycled materials, compostable garbage bags and biodegradable cleaners. The event is being billed as carbon neutral--which means organizers intend to offset the amount of fossil-fuel carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions the festival generates. Each venue will offer information tables featuring educational and volunteer information relating to environmental issues and organizations.

"The core idea of the Green Apple Festival is to raise awareness of Earth Day," said Peter Shapiro, founder and executive producer of the festival, in a statement. "By featuring a diverse group of musicians and uniting these venues under one cause, we are able to coordinate a very exciting, and somewhat unprecedented event."