Valerie Cassity
Special to the Sun

The Living Green Festival Committee held an environmental film festival on Sunday at the Reel Cinema in Wofford Heights. This is the third promotional event to spread the word about the 2010 Living Green in the KRV Festival.

First up was “Back to the Garden,” a film about a hippie commune in northern Washington 20 years after the filmmaker discovered it on a road trip. He found that most of the people who had been a part of the counter-culture in the late 1980s were still living the “hippie” lifestyle in different ways. Some live off the grid in homes rigged with alternative energy, grow their own food, haul their own water, and more. Those interviewed had a variety of careers including, a music and language teacher, a Microsoft software developer, a school counselor in a conservative town. Skeeter, one of the former commune residents summed it up with, “Some people are waiting for the new golden age on earth; I’ve been living it for 30 years.”

“Fresh” was up next and focused on alternatives to factory farming and the people and communities who are helping Americans shift to more sustainable food production.

The film showed how factory farming of monocultures (large amount of one crop or type of animal being grown on acres of land) has created a pollution problem, particularly in the meat and dairy industry. This is because it destroys the balance of animals and plants that help each other to grow and thrive, explained the filmmaker.

The film highlighted examples of farms that raise crops organically, without sacrificing profit while increasing the nutritional value of their product. According to a representative from the U.S. Center for Food Safety, medium-sized organic farms are more productive and profitable than giant industrial farms. “Part of our responsibility as stewards of the earth is to respect the design of nature,” said Joel Salatin, an organic farmer in Virginia.

The final movie, “No Impact Man,” showcased the experiment of writer Collin Beavan as he took himself, his wife Michelle, and their two-year-old daughter Isabella through a year of living without any net environmental impact.

To make matters more difficult, the family lives in New York City, and had to avoid any gasoline or electric powered transportation, including subways, taxis, and even elevators. Beaven took the family through the experiment in stages; his wife was skeptical but supportive every step of the way, even when she had to give up her Starbucks habit, cosmetics, and toilet paper.

The film follows the family’s struggles and joys as they learn that less is sometimes more. Their family bond grew stronger without the distractions of modern life, such as the television, which the family had been “addicted” to at the beginning of the year-long project. In his research for the film, Beavan found that meat-eating worldwide is the largest cause of greenhouse gas emissions; more even than transportation, so the family also became vegetarian.

In the end, the project was a success and while they do go back to using toilet paper, the family decides to adopt some of their new habits, such as shopping at the farmer’s market and using less electricity. “It isn’t about depriving ourselves,” said Beavan. “It’s about seeing if we could have a great life without wasting.”

The Living Green Festival is an endeavor of Kern River Valley Revitalization, and the second annual weekend-long event will take place next month, March 17-21, 2010.

In the meantime, the committee has one more film festival planned, which will take place on March 7, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., once again at the Reel Cinema. For more information, visit their website at www.LivingGreenKRV.org.