Sustainable Earthfest?

Earthfest: And how is this sustainable?

This weekend was Iron Range "Earthfest", ostensibly showcasing  and encouraging "sustainability".  This picture shows the United States' primary problem; its fundamental building structure is the unsustainable use of fossil fuels.It is the problem most Americans cannot understand; the way we live and do everything in the U.S  can never be sustained as it is now. 

Despite the good intentions of the organizers, the Iron Range itself is the perfect example of non-sustainability. Ignoring such obvious signs such as the oversize vehicles popular here, one  needs to ask some really fundamental questions. Why are people here? Why do the communities exist? What are they based on?  The answers are fairly obvious, of course. There is only one reason these communities exist and that is resource exploitation. And no, taconite lasting another century or so does not make it "sustainable". All the fossil fuels, food and other material feeding the great bloated cow  called modern America is built on over-exploitation.  Hauling the average pound of food 1500 miles by truck automatically makes it non-sustainable. But basing local income on resource exploitation is by definition non-sustainable. The Iron Range, is in fact, an example of the very definition of non-sustainable. It exists to tear a resource out of the ground and send it elsewhere and for nothing else. In this case, placing a band-aid over an amputation doesn't work. 

The Earthfest board also turned down money from the Sierra Club so as not to anger the mining companies. This, of course, is called co-option, and it undermines the meaning of Earthfest as a "grassroots" organization. It is no longer grassroots when it must show allegiance to the most rapacious organizations on the planet. It is having Ratko Mladić  sponsor a human rights event. It also shows a fundamental misunderstanding of  sustainability; like most Americans, they assume that life can and will go on the way it has since the 1920's...consuming more and more. Now, of course, if we just recycle and compost the world will be saved. This simply is not the case and it is especially true for the range.

Earthfest should choose another name.