Jonathan Joyce
Environmental Health Specialist
My girlfriend and I were two of the reported 60,000 people who attended the 40th Annual EarthFair in San Diego on April 18th. Having never been, I at least expected an afternoon of superb people watching (I wasn't disappointed) and at best hoped to feel that rush that comes from interacting with like minded and concerned people. I thought I'd use this outlet to share some information about two of the best booths we stopped at.
Plant With a Purpose
In their own words:
By reversing deforestation, Plant With Purpose helps the poor restore productivity to their land to create economic opportunity out of environmental restoration. Since 1984 we have helped more than 100,000 people in some 230 villages lift themselves out of poverty through our holistic approach to sustainable development.
http://www.plantwithpurpose.org/
BottleHood
Converts used bottles into tumblers, vases and other purposes that don't involve hanging out in a landfill for 4000 years.
http://www.bottlehood.com/
There were plenty of other great displays, these two just stood out as being especially interesting.
As for the negatives...
Anti-abortion activists thought this would be a great opportunity to display large displays with images of aborted fetuses. I'm all for freedom of speech, but this wasn't a tasteful way to get their message across.
The traffic getting there! You'd think that this would be one event worth using San Diego's lacking public transit system for! I felt doubly good about flying past the lines of cars on my bike.
In-fighting... And this is probably my biggest pet peeve in the Environmental arena. Parochial causes and people who consider their cause to be of the utmost importance. The PETA people think the San Diego Canyonland cleanup crews aren't committed enough and so forth.
Plant With a Purpose
In their own words:
By reversing deforestation, Plant With Purpose helps the poor restore productivity to their land to create economic opportunity out of environmental restoration. Since 1984 we have helped more than 100,000 people in some 230 villages lift themselves out of poverty through our holistic approach to sustainable development.
http://www.plantwithpurpose.org/
BottleHood
Converts used bottles into tumblers, vases and other purposes that don't involve hanging out in a landfill for 4000 years.
http://www.bottlehood.com/
There were plenty of other great displays, these two just stood out as being especially interesting.
As for the negatives...
Anti-abortion activists thought this would be a great opportunity to display large displays with images of aborted fetuses. I'm all for freedom of speech, but this wasn't a tasteful way to get their message across.
The traffic getting there! You'd think that this would be one event worth using San Diego's lacking public transit system for! I felt doubly good about flying past the lines of cars on my bike.
In-fighting... And this is probably my biggest pet peeve in the Environmental arena. Parochial causes and people who consider their cause to be of the utmost importance. The PETA people think the San Diego Canyonland cleanup crews aren't committed enough and so forth.
