The clouds couldn’t keep people away from Santa Barbara’s Earth Day Festival in Alameda Park on Saturday and Sunday. Dozens of families from all over the county came out to listen to live music, eat food, shop, and learn about the array of local organizations, agencies and initiatives committed to sustainability, clean energy, and general eco-friendly living.
Many attendees sported fish and whale hats, thanks to rangers from Los Padres National Forest, who gave out trout-shaped hats to highlight the endangered steelhead recovering in the forest’s waterways, and staff from Blue Whales Blue Skies, whose blue-whale-shaped paper hats celebrated the program’s efforts to reduce fatal ship-strikes on vulnerable cetaceans. One eye-catching booth, manned by high schoolers, was dedicated to fighting big oil — including “Don’t Enable Sable” signs, referring to Sable Offshore Corp. and its restart of oil production and a once-ruptured pipeline snaking through the Gaviota Coast. It was a reminder of the early days of Earth Day, which is widely acknowledged as beginning in Santa Barbara after the devastating 1969 oil spill off its coast.
The Community Environmental Council — the festival’s main organizer — crowned two “Environmental Heroes” in a Sunday award ceremony. Megan Birney Rudert, president and CEO of Unite to Light, was honored for her leadership of the Santa Barbara–based nonprofit expanding access to clean, affordable solar energy in off-grid communities worldwide. And Santa Barbara Assemblymember Gregg Hart was honored for advocating for policies and programs to protect California’s environment and coastline.
Attendees drank beer and wine in the Beer Garden, danced to live bands such as the Doublewide Kings and False Puppet, and bought handmade jewelry and crafts. Overall, the turnout was quite sunny despite the overcast skies.
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