Green Festival 2012: Fostering Community And Sustainability In New York City And Beyond

Amy Goodman at the Green Festival

"Usually, people who care about the community, who care about the Earth, think that they're by themselves," Rebuild the Dream's founder Van Jones told The Huffington Post at New York City's first Green Festival.

But the festival staged at the Javits Center this past weekend to celebrate Earth Day attracted an estimated 25,000 environmentalists.

The event, which had been billed as "a walk through a sustainable community," included speakers such as Jones, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! and hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, as well as sustainable products and green lifestyle demonstrations.

Vendors promoted everything from reusable water bottles and fair trade chocolates to bottle-cap dresses and elephant- dung paper. For the speakers and the small businesses a community focus was key.

Last month was the hottest March on record in many regions of the United States, Goodman observed in her speech at the festival. Next to extreme-weather warnings flashing on television screens, "Global Warming" should be appear as well, she suggested.

One concern about green festivals is that they might attract only those already aware of environmental issues. But Goodman told HuffPost that she feels these events draw from a wide range of people, from small business owners to conference center workers -- not to mention, say, the father of an activist, visiting from out of town.

Events like the Green Festival can play a vital function Goodman told HuffPost: "To be conscious and to be sustainable -- everyone can't garden themselves. Everyone can't grow their own food. But to know that people are doing it ... We can gather together and support those who are doing it and actually create a sustainable world."

"A lot of the people who are here get re-energized and reinspired," Jones said. "Then they go out and they become the evangelist in other places."

"So the people who don't come ... are impacted by the people who do come," Jones added. "Change happens when ordinary people push for it."

Goodman and Jones also stressed to HuffPost editors the role of the press in providing continued coverage on issues such as climate change. In a new national poll commissioned by the Project for Improved Environmental Coverage, a majority of Americans believe news coverage of the environment should be improved.

A vegan for "many years," Simmons told HuffPost that he believed others should embrace "less-toxic lifestyles." Vegetarianism can significantly reduce a person's carbon footprint, he said. For him, events like the festival can spur the public discussions needed to make people aware of the consequences of their choices.

Check out images and tweets from the Green Festival below.

Also on HuffPost:

From our partners

• Oklahoma Tornado Shows Progress In Weather Warnings - Climate Central
• Shopping Accounts For How Many Miles Traveled In U.S.? - Mother Nature Network
• Widespread Greenland Melting A Sign Of Things To Come - Climate Central

Comments

[Samuel Christopher Ellis]

11:31 PM on 05/23/2012

Ahem. Amy? Why are you drinking coffee out of a disposable cup?

[RemyC]

10:33 AM on 05/12/2012

Amy Goodman is just riding the green consumer band wagon. If she knew, or even cared, the extent to which Green Festival organizers conspired to prevent the issue of our local Indian Point nuclear power plant relicensing be suppressed from their event, instead deflecting all anti-nuclear sentiment to generic Fukushima lamentations, in an attempt to soothe pressures from local trade teamster unions who manage activities at the Javits, she wouldn't be so smug. It's a shame that an organization like Green America, once Coop America, would still lend its name and support to this sham of a touring greenwashing spectacle without some form of protest or resistance!

[citizenlegisators]

08:09 PM on 04/24/2012

FORT MASON PARK in San Fran was trashed by the Globalphobia WarmMongerers

[Kenz300]

03:31 PM on 04/24/2012

Individuals, businesses and politicians all need to think more about sustainability and how it can be incorporated into our daily lives.

[John02050]

10:34 AM on 04/24/2012

This "Green Festival" event is a joke. It has nothing to do with sustainability.

I am on the planning committee for an annual (REAL) sustainability festival, and we actually promote local organic food, decentralized local renewable energy, local sustainable products, and we do free workshops on sustainable living. The event costs $5/person or $10/family, and we offer free admission for anybody who brings e-waste to recycle. The e-waste is recycled in the US under strict environmental protections (it does not get shipped to China for disassembly). Our event occurs on a fairgrounds once owned by Daniel Webster which he established to promote agriculture.

I own and operate a small business which develops and manufactures all-natural and organic cleaning, hygiene, and skincare products. We also carry a completely sustainable paper product made form bamboo and sugarcane.

Elephant dung paper? Really?

This "Green Festival" and all it's speakers and vendors are there to fleece Mahattanites of their (not) hard-earned cash with the typical things Manhattanites want to hear and believe about themselves.

Modern-day snake-oil salesmen, traveling town-to-town with tonics and elixirs and pendants with extraordinary properties to alleviate your pain and invigorate your soul. Except nowadays you hold a "convention" and call all the poor ignorant souls to you, via marketing (aka "lying").

[RickW44]

02:12 AM on 04/24/2012

I went to the Green Festival in Chicago the other year and saw Amy Goodman speak. While I appreciate what her commitment to community and sustainability it was a lot of greenwash thrown over socialist "red" spiced with white guilt. This is a festival about consuming our way to sustainability with trendy multicultural platitudes and new age wisdom. This was a sanitized urban green, not nature green, and there was next to nothing to be said about biodiversity and the continual extermination of the rest of life on this planet. One booth had books called something like "There are no Illegals in America". When I told the individual manning the booth about the negative environmental impact of immigration into the United States he called me a racist and threatened to call security. I observed many women stick their feet into mud baths to pull the toxins out of their body. One could buy into this scam at great cost and purchase insanely expensive mud packs. If you love nature and wilderness this event is not for you. If you are hyper concerned about toxins entering you body and have a large sum of money to purchase energy efficient gadgets than this event is for you. If John Muir attended this "green exploitation" event he would vomit green.

[woodshoe]

03:18 AM on 04/24/2012

i appreciate the nod below, and agree with the larger measure and sentiments of this comment, however i MUST say;

there are NO ILLEGAL HUMAN BEINGS, anywhere. :)
compared to the timeless material truth of animal (including human animal) migration, the fleeting philosophical phantasms of nation-states, borders, and human 'legality' are surely a myopic point of departure for these subjects.

at the very least, some context is due.
to the extent that the usa has higher standards of environmental protection; it has those higher standards due to the work of decades of democratic grassroots activity, the same usa has spent many billions preventing similar grassroots development elsewhere. the pruning of environmental violence here in the 70s and 80s was only then exported and foisted upon weaker, less organized populations who were punished violently when they have attempted to similarly organize. MUCH MORE of the ills of this overall picture are derived FROM nationalism than could ever be remedied by a sudden baffling dose of ninth inning nationalism at THIS historically convenient moment. we would have to ignore all relevant context and embrace the ephemera of 'dominion' nationalism which allows multinationals to shop about for easy prey.. even as we all know the 'goods' from this activity are likely coming here.
there are no illegals in "america" or in any other such intellectual fiction.

agreed with so much else you presented but there is zero "nature green" to capturing human beings by force in (or out) of nation-states.

[artleads]

06:51 PM on 04/24/2012

Before you start feeling smug about our environmental standards, analyze this: We are 5% of world population, yet emit 25% of its greenhouse gases. We've cut down 98% of our old growth forests. The list could get quite long. But suffice it to insist that, because we disrespect nature and consider it only as a free resource to exploit, we do far more to destroy the planet than you realize. Mud baths have been used by many native people for thousands of years. Mud is healthful, used by those who understand its properties, and it is FREE in those societies, as opposed to ours..

[GoldwaterKid]

01:17 AM on 04/24/2012

James Lovelock......a true Green hero.

[stopsocialism]

10:22 PM on 04/23/2012

and so starbucks gives away free coffee for earth day and promotes ten million deadbeats to drive to starbucks for a handout. I wonder how many tons of CO 2 that put in the atmosphere. Once again liberal loony nonsense

[French Toast]

11:23 PM on 04/23/2012

Proving once again that Republicans will complain even about free coffee if they think they ought to.

o_O

wut

[stopsocialism]

11:58 PM on 04/23/2012

just pointing out your hypocirisy and that really stings doesnt it. We have a battle in ca over green energy, now the libs are suing to stop windmills. You wont be happy until we are all on bicycles except that the tires are made from oil and the frame manufactures use coal to make the steel. You cant win the aurgument with irrational people

[stopsocialism]

11:59 PM on 04/23/2012

I wonder what the impact was of 25 thousand hypocrits traveling to the conference

[Cullugridis]

12:38 AM on 04/24/2012

a hypocrite is a religious term.. it means someone who says one thing and does another. environmentalists don't say that human beings shouldn't travel or that people who fly in planes shouldn't fly. evaluating how much carbon is involved in your life activity with the goal of reducing it means just that. the numbers aren't really important... the term MASS TRANSIT refers to lots of people moving from one place to another. the use of sea, rail, and pipeline transportation are some of the most efficient methods of moving goods and people from one place to another. and it's not just clean air and clean water that's at stake.. a daily 5 PM traffic jam costs billions of dollars. if SOME of the people in that jam rode a bus or a train.. they would still be using fossil fuels.. but less than if each of them was trying to go to roughly the same place in their escalade.

it's a popular right wing talking point to suggest that someone who identifies a problem and intends to solve it must therefore instantly renounce whatever it is they are using.. sort of like suggesting that a person who says they are dizzy should just face plant themselves into the ground and stop with the whining!

[woodshoe]

12:58 AM on 04/24/2012

if those 25 thousand were engaged in some sort of spiritual purity contest.. then that might be a more interesting question you've got there.. you were further ahead with the comment above regarding starbucks .. the drive for a cup of coffee has near-zero likelihood of producing desirable effects which might offset that drive.

on the other hand.. the drive to the conference could be easily offset in the long run if that many more persons might become swayed to abandon a suicidal way of life which has no future.

are van jones and eco-GREEN! (tm) industrial products going to sway those attendees? not at all certain. not enough to be sure. not at first. as yet another re-imagined channel for predatory capitalism and continued industrial growth, meh.. "green" capitalism can be a truly nauseating and tiresome meme to endure.
however. the sooner those people become involved with with liberal (right wing) environmentalism, the sooner they will become disenchanted with the ineffectiveness and sometimes complicity of those mainstream organizations.

the sooner then that they might abandon petty consumer choices and petty politicking and begin standing up to resist those who would do violence the the surroundings we all share.

regardless of whether they must at first drive there to do so. (unless of course they are also campaigning to become pope.)