As we enter the era of the beginning of the end to single-issue movements, Green America & Global Exchange brings the Green Festival to Los Angeles for the first time and have already booked the Convention Center for next year!
By Sam Sabzehzar | November 1, 2011
One of the most influential leaders in independent thought, Amy Goodman, who flew in from Canada before heading back to N.Y. for her program, Democracy Now!, the greenest news broadcast in the nation!
A project focusing on a sustainable economy, social justice, and ecological balance known as Green Festival came to to the Los Angeles Convention Center, where an estimated 20,000 people came to learn about healthy living choices they can make in their every day lives.
Thinking global and acting locally is one of the keystone principals in sustainable practices.
Global Exchange and Green America is the embodiment of that thought, holding the tenants of Ecology and Sustainability nearest the nucleus of a movement that has spread beyond the environmental issues we face today and sharing a vision of a future that can be created with all of us, from the 99% at the bottom of the pyramid, to the one percent at the top.
An economy that relies on infinite growth will eventually break through a ceiling that will leave in it’s rubble a mess that we must all clean, and arresting the practices that poison an environment, any environment, is the conversation that is taking place around the globe in the manifestations of the Occupy movement.
The Los Angeles Convention Center is not far from where the Occupy L.A. camp and many who represent the 99 Percenters that are participating in the occupation in Los Angeles came to speak, and to listen.
Amy Goodman, from Democracy Now!, was one of the featured speakers of the event, and took a break from signing books to listen to a couple of Occupiers.
Ms. Goodman spoke to a packed hall, highlighting some of the recent events she and Democracy Now! have covered lately, and ties them in to the fabric of global movement that is cloaking the world with true change.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, surrounded by kids of all ages and Global Exchange’s Co-founder Kevin Danaher, cut a green ribbon to commemorate the event.
There were many different vendors offering the latest information in sustainable living for the food, clothes, and shelter markets, including toxic-free paint supplies and wood protectants, beds, cars, food containers, and even stainless steel straws that can replace plastic ones that end up in our oceans and caught in the fish that we then catch and eat.
Fair trade products were selling like hotcakes, and vegan and gluten-free hotcakes were selling like they were going out of style to people that were wearing the newest hemp and conflict-free styles, including jewelry made from disarmed nuclear missile systems.
Confessions of an Economic Hitman author John Perkins spoke on the opening day, as did Dolores Huerta, where they both mentioned a future where the world didn’t look so bleak, because of the people in the room and the power we all share when we come together to make a change in one direction.
With the economy, the environment, and the inequalities in our justice system, social movements are taking it upon themselves to be the change the wish to see but voted on others to make.
Now it appears the time has come to recast their votes and reclaim their future, like the water that is under threat of privatization, and demand this brave new world stops paving this paradise globally and stops putting up parking lots locally.
