Matt Atwood and Michael Kang of Our Future Now, at the Chicago Green Festival, April 2007
Photo by Xiao Guang Tse
August 2007 | On Our Radar
Our Future Now
Almost nothing produces more landfill fodder, waste and general pollution than a fully-loaded concert or arts festival. From his vantage point on stages across America, fiddler Michael Kang of The String Cheese Incident has witnessed this large-scale consumption and waste all too often. So this summer Kang and two friends, co-artists David Fulton and Matt Atwood, launched Our Future Now, a non-profit designed to counter the impact delivered when revelers gather by the thousands.
“The potential of these concerts is to reach 10,000 to 90,000 people at once,” said Kang, who’s spending his summer interweaving the values of Our Future Now into String Cheese’s tour schedule. With cooperating festival producers, Our Future Now will actively promote carpooling and bicycling to events to reduce carbon emissions, help erect “recycled art” projects and compelling renewable energy demonstrations, install solar- and wind-powered generators, purchase compostable cups for drinks, and serve food made from organic and local ingredients.
“We want to bring this message to people in a way that makes them feel good and want to be a part of it,” Kang explained. “The waste generated by most festivals is astonishing, and I honestly believe that once most people make the connection between the trash and the problems it creates, they’ll want to help correct it.” So far, Our Future Now has leant a shade of green to mass gatherings like Lollapalooza and the Virgin Festival in Baltimore; this month it will participate in greening Burning Man.
Instead of the heap of trash most tours behind, Our Future Now seeks to leave a greater legacy in the communities it touches. “The goal is to instill our message in millions of people who will take it home and put it to daily use,” said Fulton. “This needs to go way beyond the festivals.”
Learn more or contribute to the cause through ourfuturenow.org. — Alastair Bland
Status Bags For Book Worms
For years you’ve held on to your beloved hardcovers and old textbooks, not out of need, but out of an inability to toss those dog-eared, highlighted and underlined tomes in the trash.
Well here’s a bright idea — and one of the most adorable and creative book recycling methods we’ve seen: Send them to Caitlin Phillips, who’ll give them new life in the form of a purse.
Caitlin — whose motto is “a second chance for well-loved books” — crafts the handbags by using the front and back covers as the purse’s sides and the book’s binding as the bottom. She then adds fabric and a beaded strap and — presto! — she’s saved the book from its near-doomed existence at the bottom of that trunk in your attic.
If you love the concept, but still can’t bear to part with En Espanol! Spanish Level I, consider the stellar selection on Caitlin’s website, including classics like To Kill a Mockingbird, childhood favorites like Nancy Drew: Mystery of the Tolling Bell, and even the Bible. Browse the bags ($90 and up) at rebound-designs.com.— Jenny Rough
Who You Trying to Get Crazy With, Ese?
Don’t You Know GoLoco?
Green-minded folks like the idea of carpooling — in theory. But when it comes to opening the door to a total stranger, those old warnings about hitchhikers make even the most eco-inclined person think twice.
Enter GoLoco. The website, created by Zipcar founder Robin Chase, pairs the efficiency of a digital ride board with the trust-building features of MySpace. Drivers and passengers anywhere in the country can use it to post and find rides, check out potential ride-mates, and even deal with gas and toll money transactions upfront.
Most GoLoco users join the service to do their part for global warming. According to Chase’s calculations, it takes a tree one month to absorb the emissions created by driving a single mile. Drive 24 miles? That tree will be huffing and puffing on your exhaust for the next two years. The more people sharing rides, the fewer cars there are on the roads — and the fewer emissions in the air.
Carpooling also makes financial sense. The U.S. Department of Transportation calculates that the average American spends 19 percent of their income on transportation. Each mile alone costs an average of 50 cents, once you add up gas and maintenance costs. GoLoco surfaces those costs and lets fellow riders use online payment systems to get potentially awkward money discussions out of the way before the ride begins.
But Chase hopes GoLoco changes the way we think about driving altogether, from wasted time to opportunities for low-key social occasions. GoLoco users can create different social circles — of friends, of fellow surfers, of likeminded do-it-yourselfers — and use the service to shoot out emails about trips on which they’d enjoy some company. Using those features, Chase recently took a last-minute trip to a garden store with a friend she hadn’t seen in weeks. “We got to gossip and catch up,” Chase says. “It was an easy thing for us to do together, without turning it into a big heavy-planning, date-type event.”
With enough users, GoLoco could even become an on-demand ride service. Imagine getting out of a ballgame, tapping into GoLoco via your cell phone, and instantly finding another Giants fan who’s not only headed your way but will also be delighted to rehash the umpire’s lousy calls on the drive home. “We will transform people’s expectations about travel,” Chase says. “It will seem incredibly sad and lonely to be going someplace in your car by yourself.”— E.B. Boyd
If Another World is Possible,
Another U.S. is Necessary
First U.S. Social Forum Meets in Atlanta
Imagine a country built on peace and social justice, on racial and gender equity, on ecological and economic security for everyone. Imagine a culture that excludes no one, marginalizes no one and leaves no one behind. Imagine another world… a better world… a world made of many worlds… Imagine a country called hope.
For those who were able to attend the first U.S. Social Forum (USSF) June 27-July 1 in Atlanta, Georgia, a glimpse of this future appeared on the horizon. The USSF — a national spin-off of the international World Social Forum, a global gathering of activists that began in Brazil in 2001— brought together over 10,000 people to dream, plan, strategize and act on the notion that if you want peace, you must work for justice.
The gathering took place in Atlanta, birthplace of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. because, as W.E.B. Dubois said, “As the south goes, so goes the nation.” By coming together to strengthen their movements — in the words of Kai Barrows, an organizer with Critical Resistance, “to turn many movements into one Movement that really moves” — participants in the USSF hope to bring about long-term, radical social change.
Over 900 workshops, cultural events and lectures took place over five days, touching on issues from immigrant rights to environmental sustainability to abolishing prisons. The overwhelming majority of presenters and participants were young people of color, affirming what 21-year-old Julián Moya, a representative of New Mexico’s Southwest Organizing Project said: “As youth, we are not the future, we are the present.”
Tom Goldtooth, Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, pointed out that, as the first people of this land, native people need to be at the forefront of any movement for social change, while Ed Ott, from the Central Labor Council of the AFL-CIO reminded the crowd that immigrants come to the US for the same reason migrants everywhere cross borders — to work for a better life.
Given the presence of so many youth, the plethora of cultural events and the strong will of everyone present to learn from each other and work in unity, the spirit was wildly exuberant. Still, while the goal of the USSF was to envision the road to positive change, it remained painfully clear that with 2 million people in prison, over 85 million lacking health coverage and a war with no end in site, we have a long way to go. Nonetheless, the crowd roared when Eli Painted Crow, a Yaqui woman from Arizona who has become a voice for peace after serving twenty-two years in the military, reminded us that “Peace is not something you demand — it is something you become.”
Look for a global week of action next January, and regional social forums happening across the country until the next US Social Forum in 2010. — Jeff Conant
Worth Repeating
“What have the immigrants been doing once they get into the US? Taking up time on the elliptical trainers in our health clubs? Getting ahead of us on the wait-lists for elite private nursery schools? In case you don’t know what immigrants do in this country, the Latinos have a word for it — trabajo.” — Author Barbara Ehrenreich arguing against the proposed immigration bill that would fine undocumented workers (TheNation.com, 6/12).
“Tomato ketchup has higher levels of lycopene [a strong antioxidant] than either organic or conventional tomatoes. So if you want lots of lycopene, you should eat tomato ketchup.” — Lord Krebs, former chairman of the Food Standards Agency, commenting on a recent study showing organic tomatoes have almost double the quantity of antioxidants called flavonoids than tomatoes conventionally grown (Times UK, 7/05).
“Without oil we could no longer produce or transport food, and most of humanity would starve. That would be a tragedy, but at least all those bodies could be turned into fuel for the rest of us.” — Satirical message delivered by ethics activist Andy Bichelbaum of the Yes Men at a fossil fuel industry conference. Bichlbaum posed as a representative of the Natural Petroleum Council, which is led by a former Exxon-Mobil CEO (blog.wired.com, 6/14).
“It takes almost seven days of training to become a Starbucks barista. Add just one more day and you can become a gun-toting member of the Iraqi police.” — Blogger John Aravosis responding to an NPR report that Iraqi police trainees are allowed to keep their uniforms and guns after only eight days of training, at which time many of them defect (AMERICAblog.com, 6/21.)
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