I'm here in San Francisco at the Green Festival -- billed as the world's largest green expo. The San Fran convention center is packed to the rafters with booths, booths, booths.
It is somewhat verboten to say so these days, but the predominant vibe is still distinctly hippie. (As I wrote that, a small troop of people wandered by playing drums and tooting on flutes.) Dreadlocks abound. Tofu products are ubiquitous. The word "spirit" is deployed with alarming frequency. There's batik and tie-dye and didgeridoo honking and so forth. It's like an enormous Grateful Dead parking lot.
(Just as in a Deadhead parking lot, despite the radical pretensions and socialist bumper stickers, the air fairly sparkles with capitalist striving. People are making money here, and they all -- even the stinkiest of hippies -- clearly want to make more. And good for them.)
However! In keeping with the "green is the new black" marketing spin, there are distinct signs of change. Interspersed among the patchouli-scented vendors are solar-panel installers, contractors, slickly packaged energy bars and fruit drinks, finance and loan officers, folks in starchy shirts and khakis.
And most heartening of all, the attendees at the festival are, by and large, less crunchy than the vendors. It strikes me as a fairly representative cross-section of the populace. There's obviously huge, huge interest in this kind of thing. I'm not sure the green movement itself is quite keeping up with the mainstreaming of green, but the gap is narrowing. There's buzz in the air. Something is obviously happening.
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Biodiversivist Posted 1:23 am
11 Nov 2006
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
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Urban Gay Posted 1:40 am
11 Nov 2006
The audience members/consumers were quite a bit more mainstream than the vendors. Which, in my mind, is a good thing. Concern for the environment and the importance of building a greener future so that we actually have a future is something that should be spread far and wide. This is not, and should not be, a patchouli-scented club for the kids in the know. A green mentality is something that should be promoted and encouraged with the sense of fervor, style and savvy that Apple uses to sell iPods.
We are not here to be good people. We are here to be better people.
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Tod Brilliant Posted 7:31 am
11 Nov 2006
" . . . because the world doesn't matter anymore if you don't have the strength to go ahead and choose something that's really true." - Julio Cortazar
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caniscandida Posted 7:44 am
11 Nov 2006
Sorry, but I feel another one of those West Coast stereotypes coming on ... : )
Urban Gay, I am delighted that you found the scenery worthwhile. Apparently, "C+G" is your abbreviation of "crunchy granola"? Which I guess means shoulder-length hair, with feathers worked in? Well, fine, the extremely short-haired, military type has been for far too long the most exhibited fashion.
Of course, in all fairness, there are plenty of cute Republicans too. It is a great puzzle, in fact, how so often in history good looks and bad politics seem to coincide. For the Roman Empire, for example, cf. Ben Hur's ex-boyfriend Messala. I call it "the Kiss of the Spider Woman Effect."
Anyway, to leave such not unimportant matters aside, it is clearly a very good sign when such an event draws so many apparently mainstream visitors.
But let us see what happens, when the show moves on to Dallas.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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rickeym Posted 2:31 am
12 Nov 2006
A few of the featured speakers made impassioned pleas regarding an end to our consumer-oriented ways. Meanwhile, out in the booths, retailers were flogging every conceivable product -- most of which, while organic, fair trade, sustainable, and otherwise full of righteousness, were simply consumer substitutes, still manufactured and packaged and shipped, etc.
Aside from the oxymoronic notion of the "green consumer," the event itself has now outgrown the venue. The press of humanity and the cacophony of the current venue is absolutely brutalizing. It was hard to enjoy the speakers when they were being drowned out by the Live Music Stage. What the festival needs is to take over a university campus for the weekend, where they would have access to a real auditorium (for the main speakers), lecture halls for the other sessions, and so forth. Also, this is a networking venue, yet it's almost impossible to carry on a conversation with someone.
Suffice to say, I will not attend another Green Festival as it is currently constituted.
One particularly gaff at this year's gathering was to assign the only session devoted to people of color in the green movement to an auxiliary tent outside of the convention center itself. This wasn't even the back of the bus; it was like hanging on to the rear bumber! I'm embarrassed for the movement.
I don't know what to make of the crunchy observations. Perhaps because I'm a native San Franciscan (living in exile currently), but that sort of thing doesn't register with me as much as the sheer capitalist energy of the scene. You could smell the testosterone. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for local businesses supplying us with life's necessities. But a lot of the energy seems to be leaning toward larger scale effort: Become the next Body Shop. Then sell it for bazillions. Whatever.
To end on a more positive note, What I like best about the Green Festival is the pep rally aspect. Korten was great, Suzuki was great, numerous other speakers had great things to say. You leave all pumped up to do more good work, and you know you're not alone.
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