Friends of the Earth : Smaller Crowds, Limited Goals Prevail at Celebration of Planet

It ain’t easy being green. Earth Day celebrants may profess to take showers in less than a minute, faithfully separate plastic milk jugs from their paper trash or brag that they canceled their junk mail 20 years ago.

But everyone has his limits, some Ventura County residents admitted at the Land by the Sea Fair at Channel Islands National Park on Saturday.

“Everything man touches he destroys,” said Giovanni Panciera, a 47-year-old artist who smoked a cigarette as he lamented the nation’s polluted waterways and overdeveloped lands. “I think new values should be set on all of humanity.”

What about on smoking? It’s a personal choice, Panciera said, adding that Saddam Hussein’s blazing oil fields in Kuwait pollute more air than one Marlboro man.

Greg Pinkerton, a construction worker who always recycles his family’s trash, admitted that he feels guilty about his four-hour daily commute.

“I feel I’m doing something against all this,” he said, gesturing toward a myriad of booths hailing environmentally safe products. “I walk through here and think a lot about it. But right now I’m just trying to survive . . . trying to make my house payments.”

“If I quit my job and was totally for the environment and didn’t drive my car anymore, who would feed us? Where would we sleep?” asked Pinkerton, 33.

A year ago, on the 20th anniversary of Earth Day, the Land by the Sea Fair attracted more than 15,000 people. This year, organizers in Ventura expected a crowd only a third that size. And without the help of the city this year, groups had a difficult time even funding the event, said Heidi Whitman, a member of the Ventura County Environmental and Energy Education Council, the event’s main sponsor.

“Last year it was a mass-media event and they had remotes from Africa and everything,” Whitman said. This year there has been less hype and “a lot of people who are not interested in the environment forget.”

Merchants tried to encourage fair-goers to take up new habits, such as switching from disposable to cloth diapers or riding the bus to work.

But using alternate energy sources or mass transportation can be difficult for an individual without support from industry and government, some said.

“You have to start with the government . . . and get a funding source,” said Hugh A. McTernan, who was displaying solar products that included a stove run on energy from the sun. “I’d have trouble affording some of the things that I sell.”

Recycling seemed to be fair-goers’ most frequently acknowledged contribution to aiding the planet. It’s simpler now for people to do their part separating aluminum cans from discarded newspapers because the marketplace and area cities have begun to accommodate them, said Kitty Dill, who works with the Ventura County Sanitation District.

She said she was heartened by the turnout. They may have attended “to see the entertainment. It may be to have their children participate in the environmental crafts. But they’re here. . . . I like to think they’re the vanguard of those who aren’t. I like to think the glass is half full and not half empty.”

The 21st anniversary of Earth Day is Monday, but events are scheduled throughout the next few weeks. Today a celebration at Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks will include an eco-marketplace, an art show, car emissions testing and entertainment. Also today, an observance with nature walks, a panel discussion on the environment, storytelling and California Indian music will be held at Satwiwa Native American Cultural Center in Newbury Park.

Elsewhere in the county Saturday, school and community groups planted trees and attended nature walks in honor of the Earth.

In Simi Valley, the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District and a group called the Arroyo Simi Aquatic Protection Committee organized about 75 people to clean the rubbish from the flood control channel as a means of protecting the snowy egrets and other wildlife living there.

Three Brownie and Girl Scout troops joined Supervisor Vicky Howard, park district employees and other residents in pulling garbage--including plastic bags, a license plate, a piece of pipe and a shopping cart--from a three-mile stretch of the Arroyo Simi between Sycamore Drive and Madera Road.

“Hey, there’s a plant over here,” said Amanda Soltis, an 8-year-old Simi Valley girl, pointing to a green leaf sprouting from the ground.

“I haven’t seen any neat little plants down here,” she said. “I don’t think they live because the water looks polluted.”

In her home, Amanda said, cleaning up the Earth is easy.

“We put all the trash in the trash can and we don’t throw it on the ground,” she said.