Following closely on the heels of the well-attended
Sierra Club Energy Film Festival in Key West, the
Green Living and Energy Education (GLEE) Expo in
Marathon on Saturday promises to be a cornucopia of
ideas, information, products and inspiration for
green living and clean energy use.
Thirty-two workshops are being offered on subjects
ranging from "Water Smart Irrigation" and "Green
Finance" to "PhotoVoltaics for Building Pros." On
display will be cars using alternative fuels —
electric, hybrid, biodiesel and solar- powered. Also
displayed will be a host of solar energy collectors
and water conservation solutions. Fifty vendors will
dispense conservation information and sell products.
Even the food will be organic.
The expo is a fitting encore to the weeklong
Sierra Club Energy Film Festival, which was a series
of 20 energy-related films screened at the Tropic
Cinema earlier this month. The films showed the
mechanics of global warming, how it already is
affecting the life and health of people all over the
world, and strategies for changing to cleaner energy
sources. One film showed how low-lying islands — the
Florida Keys, North Carolina's Outer Banks and
Pacific Ocean atolls were examples — are adversely
affected by rising seas levels caused by
faster-melting glaciers. The festival ended with a
panel discussion of local and visiting experts
discussing local implications of global warming, and
an Energy Summit generating discussion among key
decision-makers on planning for the future.
The Sierra Club Film festival and GLEE are
marvelous examples of what a handful of individuals
can set in motion. Jody Smith Williams — a Key West
member of the Sierra Club, executive assistant of
the Healthy Start Coalition and former volunteer and
event coordinator at the Tropic Cinema — saw a blurb
on the Sierra Club's Web site announcing the
availability of the Energy Film Festival material
and asking for volunteers to coordinate it in local
communities. Williams volunteered, enlisted a cadre
of helpers and sponsors and scheduled the films in
conjunction with the GLEE expo.
GLEE is the outgrowth of work by Diane Marshall
and John Hammerstrom in designing their green home
in Key Largo. They found that local contractors and
building supply companies had little experience with
green construction, so they traveled the country and
researched alternate energy, materials and products
to build an energy-efficient, non-polluting home. In
fact, they were the first to sell excess
solar-generated electricity back to the Florida Keys
Electric Co-op.
The couple's project triggered a cascade of
interest, and they were beset with requests for
information about green building. Realizing the
difficulty in getting the information, Marshall
approached Doug Gregory at the Monroe County
Extension Service about helping to make the
information more available. Marshall, Gregory and
others put on the first green energy exposition in
2005.
This year's GLEE expo is from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Saturday at Stanley Switlik School, 3400 Overseas
Highway in Marathon. It promises to be a convergence
of like-minded residents who increasingly are
discovering the importance of treading lightly on
our planet. We urge residents to make the event part
of their weekend plans.
