Mother Earth News Fair

This weekend (June 1-2) Lucas and I have planned to attend the Mother
Earth News Fair in Puyallup Washington, and although we got a belated
start on Saturday, we ended up seeing everything we came to see in one
day, with some time to spare. Granted we missed some of the keynote
speakers and a rad DIY solar Panel class, all green stuff was consumed
over the course of one day: heirloom seed displays, compostable
toilets demonstrations (well not literally), a show room of electric
cars, award-winning chickens and roosters, a Yes! Magazine kiosk
selling back issues of Yes! for really cheap (I think I was actually
most excited about this deal all day), a bearded man giving a
demonstration about worm composting to farmers and asking anyone if
they wanted to “fondle” the finished, wormed, soil.

All in all the fair was what it was, to be expected. I was surprised
that there weren’t any food venders, and we had to settle for the
Puyallup fair regular concessions (In Western Washington there are
about 200 farmer’s markets alone, you think that for such a high
profile event they would offer more locally grown food?)

And then there is that question that always sneaks around in the back
of your mind…when you really have to go number two, and you’re
thinking to yourself as you sit on the porcelain what kind of poor
person can afford a compostable toilet? Don’t get me wrong, a bunch of
people congregating together to spread some green cheer and push
sustainable products is a great thing, but the question does come up,
and it is an interesting one. If you’re scraping buy, if you’re eating
top ramen for dinner every night, it’s hard to get stuck on the moral
implications of dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets, or what kind of
renewable energy you should be using.

No offense people, but you need some more 101 classes for poor folk
and at risk youth, and less toilet demonstrations. And we want to see
more poor folk and less of the post-environmental movement baby boomer
types. Not that any of this is bad at all, but we gotta open this
market up a little bit! Remember, everyone an environmentalist not
just those savvy intellectual types who can afford fancy toilets!