I've been stashing all these great events to blog about in my inbox for the last couple of weeks, and now I'm realizing that there's just no way I'll have time to do each of them justice in their own blog posts.  Update:  going with multiple posts, all at once, to keep them from getting too long.  So I'm going to just write freestyle about all of these for an hour and post it.  Pardon the typos, inconsistencies, and choppy writing style that will inevitably result, but it's a beautiful day and I need to prepare (er, start drinking) in advance of the Boston Blues Festival this weekend.

First off,  we'll start with last weekend's Monolith Festival at Red Rocks, featuring a pretty decent lineup including Cake, The Decemberists, The Flaming Lips, and the now-ubiquitous Spoon, plus a whole pile of bands I've never heard of.  I've never been to Red Rocks, but it's probably number 1 or 2 on my list of venues I want to see before I die.  Monolith seems pretty sincere about their greening efforts, but sincerity isn't always enough.  Some of the stuff comes off as kind of hokey or borders on greenwashing.

For example, they make a huge deal about the fact that they planted 7 juniper trees on the site.  Yes, planting 7 trees is great, but is it really such a newsworthy event that it needs a press release and not one but THREE names that sound like they're straight out of the EPA?  The trees planted were done so under the auspices of "The MONOLITH Tree Planting Program," also called the "Tree Planting Initiative" and the "Reforestation Program."  For the record, that's 7 trees planted and 10 words in the assorted names for the tree planting.  C'mon.  "Reforestation?"  Really??  It smacks of greenwashing.  Plus, it makes me think of Stan Marsh:

But what else is Monolith up to?  Well, they got together with car-rental insurance esurance.com, which might be doing a bit of greenwashing itself, what with claiming that its paperless billing is really all about the environment, not just a great cost-saver.  So the main stage is now called the Esurance stage.  And we got a video game--no, really--that is somehow supposed to be about saving the environment.  Pardon me, as I snicker.  Oh, one more great thing came out of the partnership:  they commissioned a displaced artist from New Orleans to build a big old rocketship out of trash and pieces scavenged from yard sales.  I'm all for public art, but how, exactly, is this green?

The festival also did the other de rigeur stuff--carbon offsets, recycling, "awareness campaign" (i.e., booths), etc.  A nice touch was their choice of a sustainable printer for all the tickets, posters, and other paper goodies.  But carbon offsets, even with super-politically-correct Native Energy, really bug me.  They continue to promote the ridiculous notion that renewable energy should be more expensive than fossil fuels.  I'd much rather see the festivals take all the money they're spending on RECs and offsets and spend it lobbying Congress to rejigger the subsidies so that renewable energy can compete on a level playing field.  Coal and oil and natural gas are not inherently less expensive than wind and solar.  They're subsidized in ways that renewable energy sources aren't, and it's a massive boondoggle.  As far as recycling goes, I don't think having a recycling program buys you any bonus points, it just prevents you from getting a slap in the face.  Also note that they didn't go for composting, despite the fact that there is certainly an organic farm not too far from Red Rocks that could make use of the food scraps.  And "awareness campaigns" are nice, and probably necessary, but I think most of us hate to be nagged.  The idea is to make greening more mainstream and natural, not to keep it on the left-wing political fringe.

So it's nice that the Monolith organizers care, and that they made an effort, but I give them a C overall for actual effectiveness.  But this is their first year, so maybe next year they can build on this.  Hey Monolith, a few off-the-cuff suggestions to do more next year (these apply to other events mentioned in my various blog posts, too):

• Raise ticket prices by $1 and use the money to fund a full-scale energy and water audit of the venue. 
  
• Since this particular venue is owned by the City of Denver, it shouldn't be hard to get the city to commit to getting the facility LEED certified.  Offer to pay for or otherwise assist in that process.
  
• Talk the venue into getting waterless urinals and switching to low-flow, dual-flush toilets.
• Negotiate with the venue to get solar panels put on top of the stage, or work with one of the various solar powered stage companies out there.
• Compost
• Source your food locally and organically, from family farms.
• Work on recapturing rainwater
• Plant trees in a section of Denver that doesn't have enough of them
• Work with local youth-service organizations in some capacity to provide mentorship
• etc., etc., etc.