And here I am at the San Francisco 2007 Green Festival. It took me about 5 hours yesterday to get here by Amtrak bus, then train, and then bus again. If I had driven, it would have been much quicker to get here... less than 3 hours to be exact. But I'm more than happy to take public transportation. The benefits are many... I don't have to get stressed by driving, I don't add to the entire carbon emission mess, and I can read the entire way. And at the price of $34 one-way, it's more than worth it. Any chance I can get to kill off my car is just icing on the cake for me.
The first day of the Green Festival was eye-opening to say the least. Not many presentations were going on, but their "marketplace" filled with all their green vendors was going full blast. You walk down the aisle, and it's "green this" and "green that." It's literally green overkill. Personally, this reminded me in a lot of ways of what was going on 10 years ago during the entire Internet bubble, where everyone was going gangbusters to put businesses and services online. And as you know the story, a lot of these ventures failed, and the Internet bubble burst.
So, as a pragmatist, I'm looking at this "green movement" and wondering if history will repeat itself. And it may not, given that our situation now is like having a gun pointed straight at us, requiring us to make a change and become greener. A lot of the businesses I've seen are legitimately green and have been living this lifestyle for years. But then you have the newcomers who you can tell are just jumping on this green bandwagon to make a profit. What I'm sensing is a little bit of "greenwashing" going on, where businesses are painting themselves as being a lot more environmentally friendly than they really are. This is where you really have to know your stuff and sniff out who's really walking the walk, and who's just jabbering at the mouth. Here's my prediction: I think we are experiencing a "green bubble" right now that will become oversaturated with greenness in a few years, and a lot of these ventures won't make it. But, like the Internet craze, the green movement won't go away... it'll just become smarter and understand how this environmental movement really works, and not just throw money at anything to call itself green.
Deepak Chopra's presentation yesterday was also interesting on many levels. I had first heard about Deepak 10 years ago while doing a pledge drive for PBS in Dallas, TX (yes, I was one of those people you see on TV answering phones. It's a moment in my life I'm not too proud of). PBS would give you a video of Deepak if you pledged a certain amount, and I personally thought this guy was one of these "deep thinkers" just spouting existential mumbo-jumbo to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Now, 10 years later, I'm watching this guy live in a five-story atrium that is just packed to the hilt with people. Obviously, he's come a long way since his days trying to push videos on PBS.
Deepak came out on the stage wearing these glittery glasses, and I couldn't help to think that—like Elton John—he thought of himself as a rock star of the spiritual healing world. I listened to what Deepak had to say about human consciousness and uncertainty and how they are supposedly all part of the bigger plan that nature has put into place, and how every living thing is interconnected and how we must evolve to the next level to use our consciousness for good. So I'm listening to all this, 10 years later, and I realize that I don't think this is all mumbo-jumbo now. This is something that I've slowly come to understand over time on my own. And Deepak really isn't telling me anything new here. So the stuff I once thought was a bunch of hooey... is now stuff that I personally believe. It's funny how much of a difference 10 years can make.
After Deepak's lecture was over, I wandered down the streets of San Francisco to find the hostel I was staying at. I happened to pass by a lot of vagrants and homeless folks out at night in the Tenderloin District, and it suddenly occurred to me the irony of the situation I was just in. I just attended an exhibition where all the well-to-do urban professionals were there being trendy and buying expensive unnecessary products to make their lives greener. And here's the homeless population, right in front of me, already living the sustainable lifestyle one day at a time without anyone even noticing or caring. It really threw me for a loop and made me realize how environmentalism can smack of hypocrisy if you're not careful. It made me realize that there's a lot more to being greener than just watching what you buy. It also involves working within your communities to help the people who need it the most. It's important that people don't lose sight of that fact, or else this green movement is nothing more than just another bubble ready to burst.
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