South Bay Eco Festival expands, virtually
Among the virtual activities on SouthBayEcoFest.org are daily strolls through the Manhattan Beach Botanical Gardens.
“Every day is Earth Day” has taken on new meaning for the South Bay Eco Festival. The inaugural festival was intended to take place Saturday at Metlox Plaza, bringing together local environmental organizations, businesses, and educational resources to give residents tools to green their lifestyles. The Eco Festival was canceled, as a gathering, after the arrival of the novel coronavirus. But the Eco Festival has taken off, as a local movement, since going virtual this week.
Eco Festival chair Sharon Cohen said that the event’s intention to bring people and organizations together has evolved into an online consortium of local environmental change.
SouthBayEcoFestival.org, has become the definitive local clearinghouse for green organizations, businesses, and education. And unlike the event that was planned, the site will be ongoing.
“It’s networking and collaborating and working together,” Cohen said. “Because that is really what is needed to manage environmental protection, working together. The festival, I think, is the beginning of that in the South Bay.”
The festival site includes links to over 40 organizations and businesses and more than a dozen videos from local leaders, including Manhattan Beach Mayor Richard Montgomery and Councilperson Hildy Stern, Hermosa Beach Mayor Mary Campbell, Grades of Green founder Kim Martin, and State Senator Ben Allen. It also includes music from Latch Key Kid, the Lucky Ones, and Jack Tracy.
Educationally, SouthBayEcoFestival.org features live streaming on Earth Day from the Roundhouse Aquarium and links to 25 ongoing interactive sites and webinars, including programming from the Manhattan Beach Botanical Gardens, South Bay Artist Studio, Heal the Bay, Waste Management, Surfrider, the Sierra Club, and the University of California’s “Master Gardener” workshop.
“It’s interesting because we had to bring everything online, but also people are looking for COVID content for kids,” Cohen said. “So it has become this really great service and purpose, to provide online content for families.”
Allie Bussjaeger, a local activist who is one of the event’s organizers, said the evolution of the festival is in keeping with that of Earth Day.
“Earth Day is more than an in-person festival we go to once a year; it truly is a movement that now lasts beyond the day, as it deserves, as it should be,” Bussjaeger said. “We are celebrating virtually but that does not lessen the positive momentum around the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. We are proud of what we have accomplished and know there is still so much more to do, and we are up for the challenge.”
Environmentalists around the world have noted that this Earth Day holds special resonance. One of the upsides of an otherwise dark time for our species has been a recognition that we can change individual behavior for our collective good, with immediate, positive results. The hope is that this lesson can be applied to address climate change.
Bill McKibben, an environmental writer and founder of 350.org, spoke about those lessons during an online appearance on Earth Day.
“What are the messages that come out of this strange moment in human history?” McKibben said. “One, that reality is real, that you can’t hector or fight with or force to negotiate or compromise chemistry or physics or biology. Both the COVID microbe and the carbon dioxide molecule are immune to political persuasion, no matter how much our president yells at them. If they say, ‘Stand six feet apart,’ we stand six feet apart. If they say, ‘It’s time to stop burning coal and gas and oil,’ then that’s what we need to do.
“Similarly, we’re learning lessons about delay and timing here that are crucial,” McKibben said. “The countries that flattened the coronavirus curve early on are doing far better than those like ours, which delayed. That’s a pretty perfect analog to the 30 years that we’ve wasted in the climate crisis.”
Cohen said that locally, the skies are clearer and the ocean is cleaner. This, she said, can give us hope in a time of despair.
“We’ve been granted a vision of a world with fewer emissions,” Cohen said. “My message to people is, hold on to that. Don’t let go of it. Of course, economically we are being crushed, and in order to bring about change, that is not feasible long term. But it’s just been a few weeks and we can already see a difference, and that tells us something about the changes that we can bring about to clean up the planet.”
PHOTO CONTEST
A Night Heron appears interested in a perfect, unridden left-right wave (on a mural by Manhattan Beach photographer Bo Bridges) in Hermosa Beach during the beach shutdown. Photo
With people staying home, the Earth is whispering to us: “Stop consuming, stop traveling, slow down. Walk, run, bike, talk, puzzle and wonder.” The skies are clearing. We can see Malibu, Catalina Island, DTLA and the mountains unfiltered by smog. Send South Bay Eco Fest an outdoor photograph taken in the South Bay between April 1 and May 1 that shows the decrease in air pollution. E-mail to info@southbayecofestival.com by May 1. The winner will receive a Gift Certificate from Trilogy Spa (value $120) and a gift basket of beauty products (perfect Mother’s Day Gift). Include your Name, Address, age, e-mail and phone number.