Envirovents Green Events
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San Francisco Green Festival 2009
The long weekend of events has come to a close for Green Festival 2009. This past Friday, Saturday, and Sunday delivered a plethora of green products, services, speakers, and parties.
Many of the products were similar to prior years, but a few new additions popped up and stood out from the crowd. One was a individual garden bed greenhouse from SunPod. Eco-friendly vegetable ink dry erase markers from AusPen made their mark. And Taylor’s Tonics Chai Cola stood out as the most unique and attractive booth (see picture). There were many more additions, but these stood out to me.
Taylor's Tonic Chai Cola
This year’s speakers were very similar to previous years, but all of the talks I attended were very informative and inspiring. Amy Goodman spoke about the need for public television as an alternative to the mainstream media. As well as alternative approaches to standing up for your own rights, such as how The Yes Men , as well as a Utah student who posed as a bidder to save thousands of acres of public land from development and shine light on a faulty auction. Paul Stamets made a powerful presentation about the power of mushrooms to solve global problems. And many many others gave inspiring messages about how to make the world a better place. Even the Mayor of San Francisco showed up and gave a brief speech.
Instead of describing each talk due to the incredible number of talks, you can purchase any of the speeches on the Green Festival website.
At the end of each day, the festivities continued at after parties throughout San Francisco. There were at least 5 different after parties over the three days.
Lastly, if you did not make it to the event, or wanted to review anything you saw, definitely check out the Green Festival Website for a very detailed account.
If you would like to see photos of the event, please see them here.
As always, if you need event publicity, calendar submittals, photography, a website, or graphic design, please see the Services section on Envirovents.
Weeds Taking Over At Harvest Festival 2009
This past Saturday in Sebastopol, California, the 11th annual Harvest Festival brought information, politics, and music together in harmony. Well, not quite, but close. There are many Harvest Festivals across the United States around this time of year. They are held at a different time of the season, depending on the approximate time of harvesting crops in the area. The festivals are used to celebrate the time of harvest, as well as provide information about the harvest.
The festival in Sebastopol was a bit different than a typical Harvest Festival. This time of year was harvesting time for medical Marijuana in northern California. The event centered around the use of medical Marijuana and legalizing Marijuana. It has always been a hot topic of debate, and this event proves that enough people are interested in seeing it legalized.
Whether you are for or against legalization or medical use, I suggest you attend an event like this to gather information from both sides of the argument. It may just make you think different about what you may hear from the news media or friends.
To get information similar to information presented at the event, try visiting www.westcoastleaf.com, a newspaper publication which attended the event.
350 Climate Change Event and Global Warming in Plain English
As a continuation of the last post about a political figure, a message was sent to globa political leaders by the organization 350.org, a group formed from StepItUp.org. 
What message? A message of change in environmental policy. As the world faces climate change as a global crisis, 350.org has presented a campaign to unite the world behind a simple number, 350. To garner attention to the growing carbon emissions causing global climate problems. I won’t bore you with the details, but 350 is the maximum parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere our earth can sustain at any given time. Today, we’re almost 40 parts per million above that limit. So 350.org has set out to join people together to show their support, and hopefully garner attention of world leaders to make changes in the world to address the problem.
The event itself brought thousands of people, a very large “350″ spelled out by human bodies, and even political figures in support of global warming changes in politics. The event occurred all over the world in much the same way. See the 350.org website for all the details of the events around the world, as many of them were filmed and photographed.
That is the simple explanation of the event, but what does it mean to you?
As far as I see it, our society is split between believing whether or not climate change is actually a problem. Many scientists have come to the conclusion that is true and that humans are the cause. Unfortunately, that does nothing for the average citizen, which may have access to the information, but does not know or understand the data enough to make an informed decision. The global climate is an extremely complex system with many variables. The complexity makes it very difficult for anyone to know what is really happening in our atmosphere, even the experts. Therefore the average person either does not understanding the science or does not believe the scientists are correct. There are scientists on both sides of the coin making their conclusions, so it’s easy to make an argument either way.
So instead, I present you with a different viewpoint. Instead of focusing on the expansive topic of world climate, think for a minute on a small scale. If you take a small amount of water, such as a pond or stream, and you pollute it with toxins, it becomes undrinkable. On a larger scale, it works in exactly the same way. There is plenty of information and data confirming the pollution of our water supplies, leaving our planet with less than %10 of clean water resources remaining. That fact has been proven humans were the cause. So think about the same thing for the air we breathe. If we pollute the air with toxins in a small area, the air is no longer breathable. Again, enlarge the area (the atmosphere) and you will get the same result.
The simple fact of the matter, is the water and air are being polluted and killing many animals, including humans. I say forget about climate change and concentrate on something factual that everyone can understand. Add pollution and eventually you will become affected by it.
When everyone is focused on a belief of scientific data, there will be believers on both sides. But when you face the facts that are simple for everyone to understand, it is difficult to ignore.
Oceana Benefit Honors Two-term San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown
Jim Simon, Executive Vice President, Oceana and Courtney Sakai SeniorPublic Relations, Oceana with honoree, Willie Brown, Jr.
Last night, October 23, 2009, Oceana, the world’s leading ocean conservation organization, hosted a special benefit dinner in San Francisco to honor the city’s former Mayor and long-time California Statesman, Willie Brown, Jr. Oceana presented an award to Willie for his nearly half-century commitment to public service. Willie has paved the way for many civil services to flourish in California.
The night’s reception dinner was set amongst a gorgeous sunset and ocean view of the San Francisco Bay and Golden Gate Bridge, which was a telling reminder of the beauty in nature onto which the event was shedding light.
Hostesses Lea Haratani Speaks To Dinner Guests
Lea Haratani of Oceana opened the evening with a few quotes and facts to set the mood for the evening. Her dedication to conservation was clear, as she excitedly explained how “we live in a time where there is a major global crisis and we have the tools and knowledge…to turn it around in only ten to fifteen years.”
Jim Simon, Executive Vice President of Oceana, announced and presented the award to Willie Brown. Mr. Brown returned the favor of his award, with a thank you to “non-profits, volunteers, and citizens who present critical information for people and their representatives to make more informed choices” that will lead to a better future. This is something heard amongst many local policy officials and non-profits alike. It is up to the citizens to take charge of their own communities by forming groups and organizations to study the problems, as well as letting their representatives know how they feel and present them the information. Oceana, among countless other non-profits, paves the way to getting that information in the hands of citizens and elected officials. Oceana’s website presents a whole slew of facts, statistics, problems, and solutions.
Jim Simon seemed to have all of the facts and statistics memorized, as he continued the evening with a great speech. His energy for solving problems was very clear.
Jim says “the good news is it’s not complicated to fix….the solutions already exist, and ocean conservation is where we can already notice results within three to five years: such as when we regulate commercial fishing to prevent over-harvesting, the fish populations return to normal.” He continued enthusiastically “it’s one of the most important problems that we can actually solve!”
Jim said the solutions can be broken down into four easy steps. “One, protect the habitat. Two, stop pollution. Three, set and enforce quotas and regulations. And four, stop subsidizing commercial fishing. ” That puts it as easy-to-follow as you can get.
Last in the roundup of speakers, came John Aiken, Director of the Palo Alto Zoo, who spoke about his insights into ocean conservation from a land-based perspective. How our impacts on land directly contribute to problems in the ocean, and vice versa. An entire ecosystem can be affected by only a single species depletion.
As an addition to the night’s speakers, a fun fashion (or trashion) show of creative and “trashy” clothes were sported by Haute Trash.
Alastair Boone models Haute Trash fashion made from a raft abandoned in the Columbia River.
Each outfit, made from real trash (yes, something someone would throw in the garbage) was accompanied by humorous puns and satires by the announcer. They sure know how to make trash and recycling a whole lot of fun! We need people like them to shine some light on our problems with some fun and humorous ways to get us moving in the positive direction.
With that, I will end this blog with Haute Trash’s great closing quote. “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the pollution.”
Greensumption
Now this isn’t an event, but from time to time Envirovents wants to notify the public of something great we found. A friend sent this over and I think it’s a great piece of work.
Check out Greensumption on Youtube.
It’s a cleverly made piece that sums up what Envirovents thinks about a lot of green business. We all need to be more aware of what we are doing, especially when we believe we are telling everyone we’re being more environmentally friendly by simply buying a Prius. A Prius will move us slowly in the right direction, but very slowly. I’m actually amazed when people try to argue with me that their Prius is better than my car. Not only did I buy mine used, but it still gets about 38mpg highway, sometimes as much as 42mpg! I’m looking to sell my car soon, giving public transportation a shot. I hardly drive my car anyway because it’s faster and easier to take the train. The fact that we all need to own our own vehicles is pretty ridiculous. It’’s the urbanization that created it. If we really need to, we should be driving around in very small vehicles the size of golf carts, which can be loaded onto other transport to take us to another city, then roam around in those. Unfortunately that doesn’t make enough money or feed the ego, so we’re lead to believe that bigger and better is the way to go.
Solfest, Powered by the Sun
It’s been a little while since the last post, but for good reason. Lack of funding. Being green is not such a great market to be in unless you’re selling green products, energy, or housing. While the green economy is increasing, there is still little money to be made in the rest of the green industry. Many green companies are non-profit and aren’t doing what they are to make a profit. Those who are making a profit, are still not looking to reap in gobs of money to pay for their fancy lifestyles, which they don’t have. Funding comes mostly from grants, because when the economy is in a lull, less people donate or put up funding for causes. Other capital can be raised by Venture Capital, but a majority of them are looking for high profit companies to invest in, not some company trying to do something good for the environment and just be financially sustainable. So this post is just to say that green is still struggling a bit, but we’re all still hopeful and chugging along, even if it’s slowly. Envirovents has been on hold for a re-strategizing before official launch. We think it will be for the better, as now we know what we’re in for. We’ll be posting an event that we are hosting very soon. We hope that will be the catalyst for official launch.
Green events have also slumped a bit recently, mostly because events happen closer to Earth Day. I do receive new event notifications quite often, but not very many are standing out right now. Solfest in Hopland, California is coming this weekend. I’ll be there for sure because it’s one of the largest festivals of the year. I went last year and had a great time, learned a lot, and met some great people. I highly recommend checking it out, or at least stopping by the Solar Living Institute at some time. The facility is one of the best examples of sustainable living and showing how you can still have a luxurious facility without giving up anything at all. The place looks like a resort, but everything has been carefully created through sustainable design and materials. They even have small tablets which describe how they were designed and what they give to the land, people, and animals. On top of that, their solar array is actually powering the facility as well as nearby homes. It is one of the largest arrays in northern California, with 10 Killowatts of solar and 3 Kilowatts of wind power. Check out their website for more details.
SF Bay Area Gets Public Transport Upgrade
Yes, I realize this is not an event, but how do you get to your events? We here at Envirovents noticed that some “green” events don’t even mention forms of nearby public transportation. Very odd considering that green-minded individuals are more likely to use public transportation.
Anyway, for those of you living in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, you’ll be glad to here that one of the major problems of the transit systems has been solved! They finally created a single pass that covers all forms of transit throughout the bay area. I have personally been waiting for this, as many of my travels involve switching from one transit system to the next, which don’t always offer purchase transfers. Well, the wait is over, because they are now accepting their new “Translink” cards, which allow you to make a payment to a single card, that you swipe to use on any transit system. Not only does this reduce your time for purchasing tickets at the station (if you have a card and put a balance on your card in advance), but it allows them to give more directed frequent rider discounts, carrying coins around from your change given, makes transfers much smoother, and makes it easier on everyone for not dealing with the differnces between ticketing systems and tickets. Also, an added benefit of less paper used for paper tickets. Yes, it looks like the cards are made out of plastic, but maybe they can make them out of recycled plastic? Anyone want to call them up and make a suggestion?
On top of public transport, we also notice the lack of carpooling suggestions in events. Therefore, we’ve been creating an events guide to prevent event planners from forgetting these important details. Plus, we are starting to integrate carpooling directly into the each event! No guarantee on this one, as it’s quite an undertaking and we may just try to partner up with another website.
Netsquared Conference 2008
Last week there was an event of a different color than green. The 2008 Netsquared Conference at the Cisco campus, brought together social entrepreneurs from all over the United States for a “mashup challenge.” The projects ranged from political, to humanitarian, to environmental, to a combination thereof. The challenge, was a peer voting for the best “mashup” internet project. A mashup is any project which combines, aggregates, or builds upon pre-existing services across the internet. An example, which won 2nd place, was from KnowMore.org. They built an extension into the Firefox internet browser which allows you to see loads of information about the companies you are browsing from search engines to the company’s own website!
When you visit a company’s website, an uninstrusive notification window pops up to let you know their ratings and a link to see more information. Also, when searching on google, little icons will pop up next to the searches, which include color-coded ratings. The ratings are for corporate responsibility, environmental impact, business practices, and much more. This project is a “mashup” because of their integration with search engines and browsers which already exist. They didn’t re-invent the wheel, but instead made it that much better.
There are several other organizations building similar projects, namely another project at Netsquared, Greenerone.com. They provide green ratings for products while you shop. You can compare products and see their energy saving or green specs as you browse. I guarantee you will see a lot more of these rating systems in the very near future. I have seen more than a handful popping up around the internet.
The event itself brought together speakers from organizations like Wikipedia, a live internet feed with Second Life, and a “hack room” for those that need programming help from fellow innovators.
The future of the internet revolves around the concepts brought to Netsquared, as many of you may notice the applications and widgets that are being built into websites and software to make them much more powerful. A great example of this, is a winner from last year’s Netsquared Conference, call Freecycle. If you’re green minded, you’ve defintely heard of them, and Netsquared gave them the funding and publicity needed to make them into the giant they are now.
I can honestly say that this event was the best event I have ever been to. The energy of the event and the people involved, were some of the most passionate, caring, innovative, and collaborative people I have ever met.
Please make sure to stop by the top 21 projects and the other projects listed and support them in any way you can. These projects are running on very small budgets and mostly volunteers. These non-profit organizations survive on donations and grants, so every bit helps.
Green Apple Festival Highlights
I know it’s been awhile since Earth Day, but I didn’t happen to run across this video until now. I don’t think I need to write a blog post for this, as the video is self explanatory.
The EcoCity World Summit Came to San Francisco This Year!
This past weekend was the EcoCity World Summit, hosted in San Francisco, California from April 21st through the 26th. On hand were top city officials, planners, designers, and futurists from around the world. San Francisco was lucky enough to be chosen for this years conference. Previous years were held in India, China, Brazil, etc.
I was lucky enough to attend this great venue and meet some of the top thinkers on sustainability and cities of the future. The speakers are carefully selected by their impacts and research into the future of cities and sustainability. Speakers ranged from local Professors, to developers, to government officials, to world leaders in sustainability. The sessions covered topics ranging from transportation, to energy, to panning, to ecology.
A friend of mine, Scott Fossel, an “eco-futurist” with two future projects which will help excellerate green living and business, happened to be moderating one of the sessions. I’m glad I stopped by to see him speak, as I enjoyed that panel of speakers. This may be due to my personal interests, but I believe they did a great job of engaging the audience more than other speakers I heard, a successful practice I have found to make a speech have more appeal. The panel was made up of Jeff Stein, Board of Trustees Chair, Cosanti Foundation, Arcosanti, Arizona; Liz Walker, Ecovillage at Ithaca, Ithaca, New York; and Gus Yates, 
hydrologist and founder of Car-free City USA, Berkeley, California. Liz Walker brought a great perspective of first hand experience into Eco Cities, as she has helped create and live in one for several decades. Her experiences learned from Ithaca and knowledge gained from talking with other eco-villages like hers, gave great insight into the challenges we’ll face into creating new Eco Cities. Gus Yates brought a funny demonstration of how cities of the future can be designed to utilize shade and light throughout the year, purely by their orientation and shape of the buildings. From this semi-circle shape, they also create a much easier positioning for car-free cities and utilizing the central space for community endeavors.
A session which I missed and wish I could have made it to, was the keynote address by Jamie Lerne, the former Mayor of Curitiba, Brazil and co-founder of IPPUC (Institute of Urban Planning and Research of Curitiba). I have heard about what Jamie has done for the city of Curitiba and his amazing futuristic concepts about city planning. If you haven’t heard of Jamie, definitely look him up. He is a true futurist and carries successful programs under his belt, transforming a small city into a thriving city revolving around creative ideas in sustainability.
Luckily, I didn’t really miss Jamie’s keynote address, as most of the presentations are available for free on their website! With that said, I have to note that the conference came with a lofty entrance fee, which the average person can’t really afford. The conference is geared towards leaders around the world, many of which may have the funds for such an event, but not all are so lucky to throw down a large sum of money. The diverse backgrounds of the speakers, as well as the international networking gained, might justify the cost. Also, there were breakout sessions in another venue across the street, which were not blocked from outside visitors to take a gander. This, with the free recordings of the sessions posted on their website, maybe the cost is justified to keep the venue from being over-packed with local activists wanting to get their voice heard.
Besides the cost, I also noticed that they did not go very far to be green in their event practices. Yes there was using compost able materials, recycling, organic food, and directions on how to public transportation to get there, but it all just seemed a little lackluster. I could be very wrong though, as maybe I’m seeing and reading about too many events which push the boundaries of being super green!
In my opinion as well as many in the green industry, we should try to look at the positives these people and events are bringing to the world, rather than scrutinizing the minor details. Most world populations have not been built in a sustainable matter and we should be praising those who have to go out of their way to take a stand against the non-sustainable practices, try their best to find more sustainable solutions, and bring about the future of cities and mankind. Here’s a toast to all those trying to make the future a better place! Keep up the good work and ignore the petty hacks. Leaders are always scrutinized the most, no matter how much they try to do the right thing. The future is unwritten and we’re certainly not perfect creatures.
Like always, feel free to cross-post this blog around the Internet, as long as you give credit!
