Green Festival 2012 Coming to New York City This Weekend

If you’re looking for a good time this weekend, listening to great music, films, eating, going to sustainability lectures, and checking out over 100 businesses showing off their eco-friendly products, then you should definitely stop by the Green Festival 2012 at the Jacob Javits Center this weekend – April 21-22.

Photo courtesy of greenfestivals.org.

Among those bringing music and education to the festival will be Aaron Ableman, whose been on stage with such performers as Somali Canadian rapper K’NAAN, and folk singer Joan Baez.

Ableman is also executive producer of the Clean Energy Tour, which provides a stage to organize and empower young people and diverse communities to “be the change” needed for social, environmental and economic reforms.

The Clean Energy Tour brings the arts, activism, education, and voters together to show them that they have the power to decide the future of their communities. From Haiti to India, Ableman has implemented co-arts programs and also worked with at-risk teens.

Also at the festival will be Penelope Jagessar Chaffer, who is director/producer/writer/editor of the upcoming film Toxic Baby, which focuses on the health effects on children when daily exposed to common chemicals found in the environment, clothing, toys, and the care products.

Chaffer says on the film’s educational website that:

The issue of environmental chemical pollution and its effects on children is one of the most pressing concerns today, in terms of both health and the environmental impact. The United States imports and manufactures 42 million pounds of chemicals everyday with over 80,000 different chemicals in circulation.

In the European Union, the figure is over 100,000. Many of these chemicals are now linked to the skyrocketing increase in childhood chronic disease. Across the world, rates of asthma, developmental disabilities, birth defects, diabetes, obesity, and certain pediatric cancers such as leukemia have risen dramatically, just in the span of one generation.

Many of these chemicals are present in a child’s daily life, found in thousands of everyday products. More than 50% of a child’s exposure to certain toxic chemicals will come from the home, school, or nursery. Which means there are many ways that we, as parents and caregivers, can prevent unnecessary exposure.

Children are also exposed in the womb when chemicals accumulate in the mother, pass the placenta to pollute the unborn fetus, which is why women of childbearing age should aim to reduce the toxicity in their lives.

Chaffer has been honored by the children’s environmental health non-profit Healthy Children Healthy World. She has also spoken before the prestigious TEDWoman Conference, along with others of worthy mention, including: Hilary Clinton, Naomi Klein, Madeline Albright, and environmental biologist Tyrone Hayes.

Chaffer is also a multi-award winning filmmaker, and the first black, female director to be nominated for a British Academy Award.

Reader comments and input are always welcomed!