Paige Parsons Roache was about to sing the virtues of plant-based foods Saturday in San Diego’s breezy Balboa Park when she held up a finger and told a tiny crowd, “Hold on!”
She was seconds from being drowned out by the roar of a commercial jet descending into San Diego International Airport, an indignity that befell three other environmentalists trying to connect with the public in the run up to Earth Day.
They were on a panel organized by San Diego EarthFest, the upstart successor to EarthFair, a decades-old Earth Day festival that once drew as many as 50,000. It faded away during the COVID-19 pandemic.
At its height, EarthFair took up much of Balboa Park. On Saturday, EarthFest was confined to the President’s Lawn, a smallish area that’s near a freeway on-ramp and directly beneath the busy air corridor passenger jets follow to the airport.
The festival, which hoped to draw 10,000 visitors, featured some environmental and conservation groups, including Project Clean Water and Plastic Beach. But the real draw seemed to be food and clothing booths that offered such things as New Zealand-style fruit ice, natural flavor nut butter, and sushi.
“We meet people where they are and talk to them about the environment,” said Michelle May of Viridian Productions, which organized the festival.
A comparative handful of visitors sidled up to an open-air tent for a panel discussion on climate activism, a topic that’s often the subject of heated rhetoric. The vibe was mellow on Saturday, allowing some basic messages to get through.
Keith Mikas of the Electric Vehicle Association of San Diego took a practical, neighborly tack, saying, “We’re at a point where there’s over 80 (EV brands) on the market … People are now really looking for the car they want, and not just settling.”
He made sure to add that charging stations are becoming plentiful in some areas, and pointed to unexpected places to find them.
Matthew Clough of Plastic Beach steered away from talking about the need to get rid of plastic grocery bags and pointed to a less familiar problem, saying that many “businesses don’t realize that the vast majority of clothing that we wear arrives in the store in a plastic bag” that can be recycled.
Standing nearby was Cullen Smyth of the California Climate Action Corps, who was feeling a bit joyous.
“Kids come up to our tables and try to teach us stuff,” he said, shortly before an American Airlines jet soared overhead. “This is really inspiring. I wasn’t thinking of some of these concepts I was hearing.
Clough built on that upbeat tone, saying, “People have been told these problems are unsolvable. That’s not true.”