Josh Fox visits Watkins Glen and Sunrise Landing
Thanks to grassroots coordinator Lee Ziesche, and local organizer Leala Farnsworth, Oscar-Nominated and Emmy-Winning filmmaker and activist, Josh Fox, brought his tour to The Glen Theater in Watkins Glen on Monday, March 2nd.
The Solutions Grassroots Tour, “A Solar Home Companion” looks at the impacts of fossil fuel development and provides an alternate vision of sustainability for the future. As the title implies, Solar Home Companion is an old fashioned variety show lightly modeled on Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion. Using music, stories, and film sequences, it provides a vision and strategy for developing renewable energy in every community.
“We’re very excited about where New York state is headed” says Josh Fox, director of the tour. “Governor Cuomo has shown bold and brave leadership in banning fracking in New York, now we have to do the next step: build renewable energy and sustainable communities”.
The Watkins Glen show featured folk singer and musician Dustin Hamman, who played in duet with Josh at the banjo.
Also featured was biologist, science writer/author, and cancer survivor, Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D, of Ithaca College. Steingraber has received many honors for her work as a science writer and activist. In 2011 she received the Heinz Award and donated the cash prize to the anti-fracking movement. In 2012 she co-founded New Yorkers Against Fracking, a statewide coalition of grassroots organizations. “We are all members of a great human orchestra,” says Steingraber, “and it is now time to play the Save the World Symphony “.
Others associated with the Solutions Grassroots Tour are Mark Ruffalo, Debra Winger, Phylicia Rashad, Peter Yarrow, Nahko Bear, Bill McKibben and Zephyr Teachout. Part of the fun is that you never know who is going to show up.
Several local organizations committed to the development of clean, renewable energy in the future paired up with Solar Home Companion to provide the audience with a local vision of what is possible going forward. They included Gas Free Seneca, We Are Seneca Lake, The Finger Lakes Wine Business Coalition, Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association, Rate Payers and Intervening Residents Against Repowering Cayuga Power Plant, Solar Schuyler, and Renovus.
Sunrise Landing Bed and Breakfast was honored to host Josh and some of his staff on Monday night, after the show.
