The not-so-green Green Festival
I can't even begin to imagine the carbon footprint left by the Green Festival this past weekend at Navy Pier, but when I put on my emerald colored glasses and gave the festival the green inspection, everything sortcame out brown, carbon emission brown. (continued below)
The first thing to strike me was the City of Chicago exhibit, which was comprised of about a hundred white cardboard boxes stacked to surround an area of the floor. If I recall, cardboard is made of paper, one of the greatest contributors to the accelerating carbon cycle. Not only does the processing of paper release greenhouse emission, but so does the transportation, then adding to that, it requires the wholesale harvest of trees, which diminishes the Earth's ability to re-oxygenate the carbon emissions.
The second thing I notice, because it is a 40 foot bus, is a climbing wall for children attached to the side of a . What isn't so noticeable is the sign on the back that indicates that is "soy" fueled. Hasn't Organic Valley, owner of the bus, been paying attention to the common media lately. The carbon footprint for creating bio fuels exceeds that of burning just plain old gas. But hey, if "the kids" can climb up the side of it, it must be green -- right?
In the category of Can't-See-the-Forest-for-the-Trees, was the massive psuedo-food industry presence. You know "psuedo food", that food that was brought to us by the marketing geniuses who figured out how to cheaply appeal to the granola minded. You can tell by the packaging that it is organiic, and healthy, until you read the back of the wrapper. I'm talking about the fruit and granola bars that are in reality carbo-sodium delivery systems, filled with rice and gluten (starch) like the ones you by at the healthy grocery store. If you open up one of these healthy fruit bars,
you'll find a ribbon thin layer of fruit compote wrapped in a thick wheat-gluten-carbohydrate cocoon. Then there's the sodium benzoate and potassium benzoate and the calcium casseinate.
Here's an example: The Bumble Bee bar. One of these 2 1/2 inch by 3 1/2 inch by 1/4 inch thick bars has 13 grams of fat, and 60 to 70 grams of sodium. That's more sodium and fat than and eight ounce bag of potato chips or Fritos and it's less than three ounces. The carbon footprint for producing, packaging and transporting psuedo-food is the same as junk food, so how is this green?
Well, everyone knows that if it looks organic, smells organic and tastes organic, it must be "green." Think again, Organic doesn't equate to green, though the organic and psuedo-food industry would like to think it is. Take Organic Valley dairy products. It may be organic, but with the carbon footprint required to transport, refrigerated, from California, hardly makes it eco-friendly. However, Organic Valley wants to position themselves in your mind as being green. They had no less than three booths at the festival.
I asked one hawker of an enzyme cleaner, sold through a well known chain of "wholly" good, green and organic products, what made his product so green. He said because it was "fermented" from natural ingredients. Now the word "ferment", generally means some process that does not require heat, such as distilling would. But, I asked and he said, heating was required, which means, carbon footprint, just like every other product on the market. Plus, it came in a disposable plastic bottle, the latest eco-villain to come under media attack for having a massive large carbon foot; so large that the city has put a drinking water bottle tax to dissuade us from buying [roducts in disposable plastic bottles.
The all time chuzpah product has to be Bliss Cleaner, touted as being a "green" cleaner. ignore that it too comes in a disposable plastic bottle and just look at the ingredients, as I did: carbonated water and various fragrances -- that's it!
What is most mind boggling about the festival is a phenomenon like looking at the stars in the sky. We do it all the time, taking it for granted, until you stop and think about the number of stars there are in the sky. Standing on the mezzanine and looking down into festival hall, the realization of the massive amount of paper required to put on the festival and relating that to the number trees cut, milled, processed and transported and will have to be transported away, recycled and transported back, ad infinitum. There is not only the information dissemination, but also the disposable paper required for the food services required to feed 30,000 green groupies.
So is anyone green at the Green Festival?
Yes, of course. There the Sri Lankan company that makes paper out of elephant Dung! Now that's -- er, green? And it helps the elephant which is running out of places to poo in Sri Lanka.
I listen to and spoke with Sharif Abdulla, author of "Creating A World That Works for All" who spoke of the need for everyone to become "mindful" of their own ecological behavior. We can't just pass it off to manufacturers and government to find a way to make us eco-friendly. But as he also pointed out that a crowd of less than fifty people who came to listen to him, how small they were as a gathering compared to the 30,000 people wandering the festival hall, eating free samples of organic-psuedo-food from disposable wrappers, climbing walls, or watching their children draw with crayons on paper and drink milk that had to be brought all the way from California. No one wants to hear what being green really means, since it may mean expectations from them
Majora Carter drew a somewhat more respectable crowd with her frank discussion of how a green economy could be coupled with the need for closing the gap in the economic disparity of the America diasporo. Something she is well well versed to speak about given her past successes in the Bronx. Too bad the hundred or so in attendance was a fraction of a percentage of those attending the festival in the name of being green. Of the truly green speakers I saw, Daniel Pinchback drew the biggest crowd, with his talk of apocalypse by 2012 and the use of psychotropic drugs. So there was green at the Green Festival
What is being Green
Based on what I saw, it was an "image" to be put on like a fashion statement. It reminded me much of the Hippy movement of the 60s, which I am old enough to remember. There were truly those who held the belief in
peace and the unification of humankind in love. Then there are those who just threw on the beads, hear band, tie-dye and dug the vibes of the Grateful Dead. I'll be curious as to who will emerge as the pop icons of the green movement, if there is a movement. I fear it might have been engulfed and absorbed by the Consumer Movement.
So what could have been done? As Sharif Abdulla points out, it does no good just to point out what is wrong. One has to have some suggested course of action. For starters, the food service could have been done with non-disposable dishes. Actually washing dishes doesn't cost more, it just redistibutes the cost back to the vendor, who can rely on the city for trash pickup costs. Parameters could have been set requiring exhibitors to use some greener medium of information dissemination than paper, much of which was thrown away unread. The event coordinators could have set up and vetted the exhibitors against a set of green parameters, meant to filter those who aren't really green and guide those who pass to be more green. I have to wonder, was there any real need for consumer products to be at this festival? Other than some textiles, I didn't see any consumable products that really were eco-friendly. Most all certainly sinned against nature in their manner of packaging.
So for those who really want to be green, best of it to you, but proceed with caution. Being green like anything good has become an industry from which opportunists will try to make money. And they know you want to be green
