Hopedance

Green Festival 2002, said the improbable catalog that arrived at my home late in October. The graphic showed two women dancing happily beneath a wind generator on a grassy slope and announced simply “Sustainable Economy, Ecological Balance, Social Justice, Live Well, Do Good.”

“What is this?” l thought out-loud, poised at the edge of the recycling bin with the daily mailing debris. I turned to the table of contents. “The human race is at a crossroads” it began. “We must choose either the paradigm of money values and violence, or the path of life values and non violence. The Green Festival is designed to give a definitive answer to the question: Can we save humanity from itself?”

“Tell me more!” I thought, consigning Victoria’s Secret, LL Bean and the rest to the post-consumer waste stream. The 30-page booklet outlined the upcoming two-day event, premiering in San Francisco on November 9 & 10. “The Green Festival celebrates what is working in the World,” said the welcome page. By then I was making plans.

I drove North with Steve Sherrill of SB Citizens for Safe Drinking water, my colleague from our local anti-fluoride wars. In the wake of the November 5 elections, both of us were feeling hammered and in dire need of something positive, a longing shared by many in these troubled times. So we hit the trail, a couple of vintage road warriors intrigued by possibility. What we found was Good Medicine.

Torrential rain made it a long drive. My Toyota Prius contributed 48 MPG to the general good humor on board, and we took the time to drive safely. Passing three grim traffic accidents on 101, we gave thanks for our luck, and, as the City drew nearer, we blessed Santa Barbara for her anti-billboard policy, wincing at the Silicon Valley cyber models that shape-shift their multiple messages like enormous TVs along the roadside. It was a pleasure to settle in at the downtown Ramada Plaza across from the Civic Center and appreciate both a Green Festival discount and the restored craftsmanship of a splendid hotel built in 1906.

San Francisco’s Concourse Exhibition Center, some blocks away, is a massive barn-like structure with several levels under an open-beamed roof. We walked the distance from our hotel, noting the abundance of homeless people living in cardboard boxes on sad streets fitted out with bars, pawn shops and lap dance parlors. This was hard-edged big city life. Yet when we reached our destination on that Saturday morning, it was evident that a unique buzz was in the air.

From the first, the scale of this event was major league. Inside were booths for 219 vendors, selling everything from socially conscious investing to salvaged urban lumber, from shade-grown organic coffee to hemp products, solar power and HopeDance magazine. The list went on and on, a rich and vibrant selection of progressive commerce throughout North America. The weekend, produced by Global Exchange, Bioneers and Coop America, headlined 31 multifaceted and compelling speakers whose voices resonate with listeners of NPR and Pacifica Radio. Global Exchange cofounder Medea Benjamin opened with “Beyond the Corporate Rip Off.” Michael Toms of New Dimensions Radio offered “Activism from the Heart.” Amy Goodman, Pacifica’s host of Democracy Now, received a standing ovation even before she spoke on “Independent Media in Time of War.”

This was a gathering of people with something in common, and it was stirring to see our side rallying with such force. Inside the building it seemed that every one of the thousand faces flowing past was eager to make eye contact, stop and talk freely about these dark times and this stimulating window of mutuality suddenly open to us. Everyone was on the same page. Elderly Ban the Bomb protesters, outraged citizens, war veterans, business entrepreneurs and old hippies, urban activists, organic farmers and today’s aware youth Ñ all the concerned souls here at this progressive homecoming seemed conjoined in an enormous sigh of collective relief, eager to get connected.

I sat watching Fritjof Capra speaking to an overflow crowd about hidden connections. “Eco-literacy,” he said, “is the prerequisite skill for the Twenty-first Century.” Next to me sat two women in their thirties, faces lit up by words they could believe in. I felt the illumination too. I first saw it in people 35 years ago. “Do you know why this movement endures,” I asked them at the end of Capra’s talk; “it is partly because of the light in your eyes.” Both of them looked at me for a moment of surprise and then reached out to embrace me with hearts too full for speech.

The organizers had screened the vendor applications with care, and, as a result had taken in only one major corporate sponsor. Toyota of San Francisco brought two vehicles the electric EV and the hybrid Prius. During the event, Toyota restated their publicized goal of a global fleet conversion to hybrid or fuel-cell format by 2012.

Such welcome news was only part of the robust economic prospects embodied in Green commerce. For instance, the soaring trade in industrial hemp was easy to see in the statistics, put out by the US Hemp Industries Association. I was fascinated to learn that in addition to markets for paper, textiles, and oil for food, hemp is increasingly sought by US and foreign automakers as a biocomposite, since injecting natural fiber into molded products makes for increased strength and lower weight. I saw the same thing at the festival itself, where the Green Housing exhibit was showing hempen wall board and cement/fiber cinder blocks. Such varied market successes will kick open US barriers to legalization.

As the festival wound down late Sunday, my friend and I headed South, sustained by a healthy dose of enthusiasm. The important messages had been clear. Lack of organization helps to keep the US progressive movement politically irrelevant. Yet it is a robust constituency that does not know its own strength. Even in these dark times there are powerful forces evolving quietly under the radar to contradict mainstream suicide economics, making money with regenerative values, ethics, and compassion. We are Not Alone.

The Green Festival surprised everyone with its success, and the organizers plan to take it on the road next year. Santa Barbara is a prime candidate, and we will be working toward that end. This can be a powerful package of hope and resolve for the New Year.