Sweetwater 420 Festival, an Earth day celebration
Earth Day…Posh! EVERYDAY is EARTH DAY folks! Jump on the green bus everyone let’s recycle on one day in April! Can you sense the sarcasm? That is how I view some of the Earth Day proceedings that I hear about over the internet via social media. It just seems hollow to me. That was my thinking before I got on the bus (literally) and connected with committed environmental folk at the Sweetwater 420 Festival held this past weekend in Chandler Park. If you live in Atlanta, go ahead and put 420 fest on your calender as a “must go” for next year!
I took my daughter to the festival and thought that we should continue with the green, earth day theme by taking Marta downtown instead of driving. It would save on gas, we’d get exercise by walking and parking would be a non-issue. That decision was made BEFORE I knew that Marta was doing maintenance on the train line we took! It seems my kidlet got a crash course on how to ride a bus as well as train! We drove on the bus to the next Marta train station that allowed us continue on our journey. It was amazingly seamless considering the logistics even if it took us a little extra time to get down to the festival.
We did miss Laura Reed and Deep Pocket which I was looking forward to seeing but we’ll catch them again at another event soon. 😀
Donna Hopkins featuring Ralph Roddenbery was next on the main stage. Great music! Ralph has a song on his latest CD called “Life” and the lyrics ring true with the theme of this message.
Is there something I can do to change this, take a notion and just rearrange this…
With a Sweetwater 420 beer in one hand, and a bottled water in another, we moved down the festival path to the fantastic solar setup for another stage called Planet 420. It was there that we spotted, the Tree Leaf Music solar wagon!
This solar setup powered the music and festivities for Planet 420. There are folks that talk the talk about helping our environment. They might even put out alarmist type articles to stimulate folks into caring. That’s not the approach of Tree Sound Studio or Tree Leaf Music. They are educating and demonstrating how each of us can make a difference by thinking globally and acting locally. They don’t talk, they DO! Solar is viable. See? It’s right there and it’s being used for power.
Next, we headed into the planet 420 tent and listened to a presentation on Water conservation needs in Atlanta by the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper. They educated us on many facts about our local water issues while at the same time explaining the basic cycle of freshwater and how it flows or doesn’t flow to our drinking water reservoirs. The UCR presenter also explained that a large percentage of water use is actually to cool down power facilities. In effect, if we use fluorescent or LED bulbs to cut our electricity, we are actually also saving water.
While at the end of the presentation, my 6 yr old kidlet was telling me she was bored. She was there and got a first glance of water issues in our fair metropolitan city. The seed is planted in our future generation!
We moved further down the path to our friend’s at the Eco transitions booth. They are all about conserving water with every flush. Works right into the theme of that presentation we just saw! Rebate programs abound for many counties in our metro area to help folks make a wise water saving choice when it comes to a new commode.
All these things help our environment. What’s in it for you? You help your earth AND your own wallet as conserving actually saves you money in the long run.
Happy Washing!
~Regina