I noticed, as I walked the FAIR yesterday, a broad section of America. From the young man sitting next to me during one demonstration class who had obviously been drug here by his parents — I make this observation based on the ratio of time he spent eating his french fries in ketchup soup to the time spent paying any attention to the presention — the obligatory “hippies,” the well-to-do older couples and even full families with kids in tow. My point in sharing this observation at all is not to pigeon-hole the attendees by any means, but rather to point out what struck me as a vast swath of folks interested in what was basically an event dealing with a sustainable, renewable, organic, recyclable future; a future we continue to be told is not really possible based on how our society is. It raised my spirits to see it and makes me believe that it really is possible.
The amount of information here as been incredible, but the organization was great. Aside from the Stairmaster workout I received from climbing stairs through out the day, by biggest hurdle was deciding between the vast list of topics and demonstrations to take in.
I’ve been able to catch all or part of classes on solar energy, geodesic dome greenhouse building, biochar and the wonders of keeping alpacas. In addition, I caught a great keynote speech from Gary Nabhan on restoring the food traditions in America and a great presentation on peak oil from Matthew Stein.
There’s still tons to take in and see and I hope to see it all so I’ll be off for now, keep checking in for more information, the guys here are hard at work to keep you all up to date!