Saturday morning Laura Flanders was
giving a talk about "being the media" on the main stage. She is the
host of a show that essentially airs pieces donated by volunteers that
want to get the word out on something. The gist of her talk was that we
need volunteers more than ever. For one thing mainstream press is
laying
off reporters left and right, creating an amazing news vacuum. Now that
the technology to get records of what is going on is much more
accessible, it is up to us to fill the void. Her version of "don't ask,
don't tell" is "don't ask for permission, and don't tell them what you
are going to do."
During Q&A someone asked her
"Traditionally, the media filtered out a lot of the scams and so forth.
In the new world where facebook can tell you anything, how do you know
what to believe?" Laura explained that there is more of a need to be
careful, but we need more information. Do some checking before you do
anything major based on a story you read in anything. I feel like she
mentioned something about how the mainstream media leaves out a lot of
important points, and that's dangerous to.
The backdrop for the stage was part of
an art instillation. Some guy had retained his trash for an entire
year, and then an artist had made it all into a big piece of art. It
looked like a big pile with many figures coming out of it, forming a
procession towards the Christ-like figure behind the speaker. The
artist said the figures were made from crushed glass held together with
pulped
paper. The part at the show was just an easy to move subset of the
whole thing.
In addition to all of the above there
was lots of shopping. A whole section devoted to hemp and organic fiber
clothing. Plenty of organic and fair trade body care products. Dr.
Bonners was there as part of that. Lots of magazines and radio
stations. A few media companies.
The staff of the Organic Valley booth
all wore "I'm your farmer" shirts. It wouldn't surprise me if that was
their day job. They were giving out samples of the stuff they sell at
Safeway. Cubes of cheese and small cups of milk, etc, etc. Over and
over I heard them explain to someone else that Organic Valley is a
network of independent family farms, and they have a computerized
system that helps them send product from the nearest farm to whatever
store is carrying it, making their distribution system as local as
possible.
ZippGo sells the service of packaging for moving. They'll rent you the
boxes, bring them to you, and then pick them up after you're done with
them. I'd not heard of reusable boxes working that way before.
Jean-Marc told me I should go outside and check out that scene to.
That's where everybody that didn't want to invest $1000 for a booth was
doing their thing.
Barry was in the Green Party booth,
handing out fascinating fliers about the cost of the war in
Afghanistan, among other things. That one had a table that broke down
the costs of the war on a State by State basis. It said California has
lost 64 soldiers and invested $21,750,546,741 as of March 29th, 2009.
For that money renewable power could have been delivered to 38,754,077
homes for a year. Lots of people put a dollar in the bucket as they
went by.
That's Susan's favorite sticker right
now.
I was honored to meet John Perkins,
author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. He got a MEND YOUR
FUELISH WAYS sticker from me. When I told him about
my favorite structural
change of the last decade he said "you can change the world with
that."
There was a fully vegetarian food zone,
serving things like lentil soup, potato and spinach knishes, and Indian
food. Almost hidden between two of these booths was a much smaller
stand, just an ordinary kitchen sink with a tap and a little counter
space for fliers and stickers. That was sponsored by the Tuolumne River
Trust, who wants people to appreciate the many good qualities of the
local tap water. They'd refill your bottle for free, and even throw in
a sticker. If you wanted a disposable cup they asked a dollar for that.
I got a refill for this bottle. It tasted good.
That bike has a generator built into
the rack that's sized to charge things like cell phones. The steel
wheel rolling on the top of the rear wheel runs a generator when it's
engaged. To control it the gear lever to the left of the gear shifter
does the job. To release it push the blue button and it immediately
disengages. It did add a noticeable amount of drag in third gear, but
not that much. They were the only product like that at the show.
Sunday I got there a bit later. This
guy was speaking above the main floor. When I got there he was asking
people to think of one word that would encapsulate everything you want
people to think of you. After I sat down he said something like "just
saying what you want is a step on the way to making it happen." He
asked some woman in the front row her goal, and the conversation just
got improbable for me about then. Too new age for me. I left right then.
Starhawk spoke a bit later at the other
end of the building. I missed most of her talk, but as I was going by
she said "we can't wait for leadership on the climate change issue to
come from Washington." I so totally agree with her that we have to be
the ones leading the fight for change in our own worlds.
These guys have a driver that helps you
not print pages that don't need to be printed. It also makes doing
double sided printing easier. The one I talked to said consumers can
download the driver from their website for personal use. They make the
business work by selling it to corporate users.
This speaker talked about a better farm
policy. She explained that cows that just graze all day produce 50
(lbs.? gallons?) of milk a day. The cows in huge industrial barns that
are fed grains, hormones, and vitamins constantly produce more like 80
(lbs.? gallons?) a day. What makes the sustainable cow competitive is
that no energy needs to be invested in harvesting or transporting food,
the cows do that themselves. Also, their freedom of movement is good
for their immune systems, driving down the need for antibiotics and so
forth. To get this kind of agriculture more widely adopted requires a
new kind of farm policy from the government.
