* Our inspiring, delicious, and consciousness-raising experience at Chicago’s first ever Green Festival on Earth Day weekend. We review vegan food and drink, talk a little about the low-waste, green management of the festival, organic clothing, and eco-books for kids & grownups. Speakers included Bill McKibben, Frances Moore Lappe, David Korten, and Presidential Candidate & US Congressman Dennis Kucinich, plus an extra special speaker representing all the children of the future. *
THE HOT POTATO
Serving Up a Weekly Helping of
Sustainable & Organic Gardening, Food, Health, and Community
by Adam Brockman & Aireen Joven, April 2007, # 15
THIS WEEK’S DISH:
Chicago Says Yes! To A Green Future
FAMILY FUN AT THE GREEN FESTIVAL. Our good friends celebrate Earth Day and hang out at the Chicago Green Festival with their baby daughter.
SUNSHINE AND BRIGHT THOUGHTS filled Chicago during Earth Day weekend celebrations. For thousands of Chicago area residents, the first-ever Chicago Green Festival at McCormick Place was where the party was at. The two-day festival, which ran from Saturday April 21st to Sunday, April 22nd, was more popular in Chicago than anybody could have imagined: the previous attendance record of over 30,000, set by San Francisco, was broken, and the record for the amount of volunteers helping out with the festival was also broken.
PARTY WELL
When we first arrived at the festival Saturday afternoon, we were surprised at how crowded it was compared to the Green Festival we attended in Washington D.C. in 2005. At first it felt like being at a street bazaar in a large city on the other side of the world, jostling our way forward amidst the throngs of people, but as we made our way further from the entrance the crowds thinned out and we found ourselves surrounded by all sorts of sights, sounds, smells, and tastes that were quite pleasing to our senses. Our appetites led us towards the local food vendors, where we headed straight for the booth of one of our favorite restaurants in the Chicago area, Soul Vegetarian East, www.soulvegetarian.com, located at 205 E. 75th St.
While enjoying local musicians performing on the nearby stage, we savored and indulged in vegan macaroni and cheese, kale greens, and two huge slices of vegan caramel cake and carob cake. The vegan soul food, of course, was delicious, but what was equally pleasing was the diningware itself. Vendors at the Green Festival served food using plates, forks, knives, spoons, napkins, and cups all biodegradable and compostable, meaning you could put them in your compost pile with your food scraps and months later, voila! You have black gold in the form of nutrient-rich soil for your garden.
At every disposal station, volunteers stood waiting to assist festival-goers in putting their trash in the correct bin: compostable, recyclable, and landfill. The goal of the Green Festival is to become as close to zero waste as possible. In San Francisco, 96% of the festival waste was compostable or recyclable, meaning only 4% went to landfills, a move that diverted hundreds of tons of waste. This is unprecedented for a festival this size, and signals how festival organizers are truly walking their talk and setting an example of what every festival could be like: far less wasteful and far more sustainable. Green Festivals are produced by Seven-Star, Inc., www.sevenstarevents.com, a national green event planner, producer, and consultant, whose services include planning, production, event greening, exhibit sales, sponsorship development, strategic consulting, and conscious event marketing.
EAT WELL
Spying the abundance of free samples offered by the organic food and drink vendors, we made our way to try a cup of delicious chocolate hemp milk by Living Harvest’s Hempmilk, www.livingharvest.com, which provides a non-dairy, non-soy milk alternative rich in Omega-3 and Omega-6 Essential Fatty Acids. Hemp is also a complete protein, meaning that it contains all 10 essential amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein. Other notable food we sampled included the WILDBAR, www.wildbar.info, a raw-food, organic, low glycemic index, nutritious bar made with cacao, blue-green algae, and agave nectar; Rainforest Treasure Tea by Amazon Herb Co., www.wesavetherainforest.com, made from healing herbs grown in the Amazon rainforest; and the belly-satisfying vegan chili-dogs we had for lunch on Sunday, courtesy of Veggie Bites, http://veggiebite.net, a partly organic vegetarian/vegan fast-food restaurant located at 3031 W. 111th in Chicago’s far south side.
The advocacy, education, and community action booths were another highlight of our Green Festival experience. One of the first booths we visited belonged to SUSTAIN, a local organization connecting consumers and businesses to local family farms. Here visitors were given a map of the Chicago area and a directory showing local CSA (community-supported agriculture) farms, with whom you can sign up to have farm-fresh organic produce delivered weekly to a drop-off point near you. Visit www.FamilyFarmed.org to find a CSA that delivers to your area.
One of the most fun and educational community action exhibitors drew visitors with life-size cutouts of black sunglasses-wearing heroes from The Meatrix flash animation series. A project of Sustainable Table, www.sustainabletable.org, The Meatrix spoofs The Matrix film series starring Moopheus, Leo, and Chickity, not your average cow, pig, and chicken, who educate while entertaining viewers about the problems with industrial factory farming. You can watch the movies at www.themeatrix.com. Another project of Sustainable Table, The Eat Well Guide, www.eatwellguide.org, lists more than 7,500 farms, stores, and restaurants in the U.S. and Canada that offer sustainably raised meat, poultry, dairy, and egg products. The free online directory may be searched by product, growing method, or by city/zip code to eat well close to home or when traveling.
Sustainable Table defines sustainable agriculture as “a way of growing and raising food that is healthy to eat, doesn’t harm the environment, respects workers, is humane to animals, provides a fair wage to the farmer, and supports and enhances farming communities.” Sharing ST’s booth, Food and Water Watch, www.foodandwaterwatch.org, provided festival goers the opportunity to sign pre-written postcards that will be sent to US Senator Barack Obama urging him to oppose S. 807, the Agricultural Protection and Prosperity Act of 2007, a misnomer bill that exempts animal waste producers from Superfund requirements, designed to protect the public from hazardous waste, which continue to pollute the air & water of communities here in Illinois.
SPINNING WOOL SPINNING WHEELS. A young woman from Esther’s Place & Illinois Green Patures Fiber Cooperative demonstrates spinning wool into yarn to an attentive girl at the Chicago Green Festival 2007.
LIVE WELL: THE CHILDREN ARE THE FUTURE
Sustainable agriculture does not stop with what we eat. It also consists of the clothes we wear and the textiles we use in our homes. After coffee and before tobacco, non-organic cotton consumes the most pesticides in the world. According to Maggie’s Organics, cotton uses 25% of the world’s pesticides and 10% of the world’s herbicides despite being grown on only 3% of cultivated land. Thanks to the Green Festival, we were able to score a few wardrobe essentials: pajama-yoga pants, a tee shirt, a camisole, socks, and a dish-drying towel – all made fair trade using lovely and comfortable organic cotton that protects the earth, the organic farmers, and the clothing makers. Exhibitors included Maggie’s Organics from Ypsilanti, Michigan – www.organicclothes.com, Natural Selections from Fairfield, Iowa – http://organicselections.com, and local retail store Healthy Green Goods in Evanston, Illinois – www.healthygreengoods.com.
What made the entire Green Festival experience especially memorable were the guest speakers. Bill McKibben, a leader in the movement to end global warming and one of the main catalysts behind the Step It Up nationwide day of climate action on April 14th, whose unified goal is to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by the year 2050, has been at the forefront of environmental activism since his first book, The End of Nature, was released in 1989. He emphasized that the global warming issue is not about partisan politics: whether you consider yourself liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, we all live on the same planet, and we all must work together to make sure this planet is habitable and beautiful for our children and grandchildren. He quoted a bumper sticker from a restaurant in Vermont, Farmer’s Diner, www.farmersdiner.com, that serves food exclusively from local farmers: “Think globally, act neighborly”, emphasizing the immediacy and power of working locally as communities to set examples for the rest of the country and world to end global warming together.
On Sunday, we were treated to a special 1-2-3 lineup of global leaders who have inspired millions with their messages of hope, health, self-empowerment, and peace. First up was Frances Moore Lappe, author of Diet For a Small Planet and the recent Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet For a Small Planet, www.smallplanetinstitute.org. She concluded her talk by relaying a personal story about a presentation by Al Gore on global warming that she attended. For the Q & A part, she found all the questioners to be praising Gore while she felt compelled to ask a serious question: why didn’t Gore bring his message home on how people’s daily choices, like the food they eat, greatly impact global warming? Moore Lappe felt her heart beat loudly before asking her question, which she knew she had to ask, despite contrasting so much with the other questions, because she realized her racing, beating heart was really a vehicle for her inner applause.
Next, David Korten, cofounder of the Positive Futures Network which publishes YES! A Journal of Positive Futures, www.yesmagazine.org, and the author of When Corporations Rule the World, gave a PowerPoint presentation and speech on what he calls “The Great Turning”. Outlined in his most recent book, The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, “The Great Turning” involves those Earth citizens who want to create a society founded on peace, cooperation, responsible environmental stewardship, and community. He illustrated that we can begin to write new stories while dismantling old, destructive, and false beliefs, creating the reality that we want to see in our thoughts, daily interactions, and life’s work.
KUCINICH AND MADDIE. Presidential hopeful and Congressman Dennis Kucinich answers a question from 10 year old Maddie Brueggemann at the Chicago Green Festival 2007.
Finally, US Congressman and 2008 Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich of Ohio (www.dennis4president.com) raised the green roof as he inspired the audience, who interrupted his speech with some 30 roaring applauses and standing ovations. Interestingly, as a non-profit, the Green Festival legally had to invite ALL the presidential candidates to speak, but only Kucinich accepted the invitation. A long-time advocate of all things green, Kucinich recently introduced HR 1234 – To end the United States occupation of Iraq immediately. “War is ecocide!” belted Kucinich, as he pointed out that peace means sustainability and sustainability means peace. For Kucinich’s Q & A, accompanied on stage by warm & loving wife Elizabeth Kucinich, the moderators decided that because it was Earth Day, it would be most fitting for the last question to be asked by the youngest person in line, 10 year old Maddie Brueggemann, attending the Green Festival with her family from a suburb of Chicago. Later, when we spoke to Maddie’s mother, she said that she had asked Maddie if she was sure that she wanted to ask the congressman a question, and Maddie said that yes, she was sure, and got into line.
Kucinich came down from the stage to hand Maddie the microphone to ask her question. She asked what Kucinich would do to make sure that kids could make decisions too, not just adults. Kucinich looked Maddie in the eye, and said that she, like all children, deserves to grow up in a healthy world where she can enjoy nature. He asked Maddie what it was that she wanted, and, very seriously, she said that she just wanted children to be able to make the decisions and decide the future as well, which Kucinich wholeheartedly agreed with. He quoted the lyrics of a song that he was reminded of when speaking with Maddie, “Greatest Love Of All” by Whitney Houston:
I believe that children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier
Let the children’s laughter remind us how we used to be
This little city created for just a weekend, known as the Green Festival, was certainly conscious of making the world a better place for children. We visited the booth of Lee Welles, author of the ground-breaking book series, Gaia Girls, www.gaiagirls.com, that tells imaginative stories of children who themselves are making the world a better place. The four-part fiction series begins with Book 1: Enter the Earth, the story of a 10 year old girl in New York who discovers that she must save her family’s farm from being lost to a corporate agribusiness conglomerate. Each book will profile the story of a new girl, representing one of the elements – earth, air, fire, and water, from different countries around the world. Book 2: Way of Water is the story of a girl from Japan whose mission is to protect the whales who live in the ocean waters around her country. Like Harry Potter and other children’s novels, Gaia Girls appeals to all ages. Across the aisle from Gaia Girls, Solar Publishing, www.solarpub.com, who plants a tree for every book sold, presented two colorfully illustrated children’s books, My Mom Hugs Trees and Mbutu’s Mangos as well as a third to be released in Fall 2007, My Mom Eats Tofu, all illustrated by Vidva Vasudevan.
The people of Chicago and the Midwest have shown that they are ready to lead the way in the Green Revolution. Now what is needed is more grassroots action and green consumerism within homes and communities to carry forward the energy and excitement that was brought together at the first ever Chicago Green Festival. Until next week, the Hot Potato is in your hands. Pass it on!
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Greetings from Canada !
your photo & story of Dennis and Maddie brought tears to my eyes. ‘The Greatest Love of All’ was an inspiration to me in 1987 (the year after my younger sister passed away). Whitney Houston did not write the song, but her voice gave it such a depth !
I am telling all my friends in Canada to tell their American friends to support Dennis Kucinich. I feel as though I know you — for example, I sent the link for Cat Stevens ‘Where Do the Children Play’ with the Lorax video to my e-list some months ago ! Yusuf Islam and Dennis Kucinich are two of my most inspiring mentors !!
in Oneness,
Nigel
Greetings, Nigel! That is so amazing that the song connects with you in such a deep way and that Dennis quoted it to Maddie and everybody at the Green Festival. The Cat Stevens connections is really cool too. Yusuf and Dennis are also two of my biggest inspirations. I love them! Best wishes for your quest in spreading the word about dennis4president.com and the campaign. Thank you from the both of us in the U.S.
peace, Aireen (and Adam too)
Greetings Aireen & Adam (A & A !!)
I just read your lovely response today — thank you ! Please feel free to check out my new myspace site : http://www.myspace.com/nigelwolfnow
in Oneness,
Nigel