On the eve of Earth Day, Van Horn Advocate editor, Gilda Morales, interviewed Michael Edmonds, Blue Origin senior vice president for strategy, marketing, and sales, on the first “Run for the Benefit of Earth” event. Mr. Edmonds was excited and animated about the Van Horn event and revealed that similar events were being held in Florida, Washington State, and Alabama.
When asked about the impetus for Blue to launch the For the Benefit of Earth campaign, Mr. Edmonds explained that this was one way to raise awareness about preserving earth and recognizing that to achieve this mission, people must get involved to ensure earth will be here for future grandchildren. He added that Blue Origin considers Van Horn its home and its residents “part of the Blue Origin family.”
It was no coincidence that the run For the Benefit of Earth was held in conjunction with the annual clean-up campaign sponsored by the Town of Van Horn. Mr. Edmonds stated that the intent of the run was for participants to “show up, run, or bring a garbage bag. We recognize that this is our home, and we need to take care of it.” Mr. Edmonds added that “the fact that the community is acknowledging the holiday (Earth Day) is huge…events like the clean-up, that’s how it gets done.”
Mr. Edmonds continued to explain that the mission of the campaign is to motivate residents of earth to make small changes in their behavior to make the earth better, such as changing from disposable plastic bottles to personal non-disposable containers that are becoming popular and trendy. He added that the ability to access the resources of space was going to be a long-term endeavor, but that in the meantime, there were many good things that we all could do now to make a difference. “We’re borrowing this planet from future generations and need to give back as much as we can. We have to act today and prepare for the future.”
Mr. Edmonds summed up the long-term goals of his campaign by explaining, “Blue Origin means earth. Multiple decades of our founder thinking about population growth and energy usage… We don’t want to leave earth, we want to preserve it…Once we can leverage the resources of space, we can preserve earth forever.”