And, what did you get Mother Earth?

Ellen Mackey circles the paradise of drought-tolerant plants edging her model eco-home and pauses before its electric meter, triumphant. Dana Bartholomew in the Daily News.

Its wheel is turning backward - her 36 rooftop solar panels injecting juice back into the city's power grid.

"I use so little electricity the DWP tells me I'm one of their worst customers," said Mackey, 57, of Sun Valley. "If every L.A. homeowner set up solar ... we could severely limit our use of electricity, reduce fossil fuels, limit global warming and stop giving money to people who hate us."

Back on April 22, 1970, the ecologist had joined 20 million Americans in a grass-roots call for environmental action they named Earth Day. They were angry that acid rain fell in the East, rivers burned in the Midwest, and Los Angeles choked beneath a thick brown blanket of smog.