Religious organization hosts global warming discussion

The It's Easy Being Green Festival didn't start off with the blue skies and shining sun pictured in the event's posters. Instead, a massive rain cloud threatened to wash out IU student Carlton Glassford's plans for this first annual concert for vegetarianism and biodiesel awareness. \nThe festival, scheduled to start at 2 p.m. Saturday, did not get kicked off until nearly an hour later. During this time, musicians and friends of Glassford shuffled to set up equipment and chase flyers being scattered across the grass of the Third Street Park. \nThe festival sought to collect pledges from attendees to go without meat for a select number of days.\n"We had almost no attendance until about 4:30 p.m.," said Glassford, who organized the festival.\nBut once the skies cleared, the festival became a concert and attracted the audience Glassford anticipated. Kicking off the show, as well as closing it, was Any Given Week, a band signed to Glassford's own record label Launchpad Records. \nThough none of the members of Any Given Week are strict vegetarians, they all said that for health reasons, they cut back dramatically on the meat products they consume. \nSinger and guitarist Aaron Lee cited his vegetable consumption, as well as his love for tomatoes, as the reason for his recent weight loss.\n"I dropped from 212 pounds to 184 pounds just from cutting out meat," he said. \nAlso featured at the It's Easy Being Green Festival were singer/songwriter Alexander Shroyer and band Glass Halo. However, the highlight of the festival was a four-song set from high-energy rock group The Skies We Built, a band made up entirely of vegetarians. \nThe Skies We Built invited about 10 members of the audience to join them on stage as a makeshift rhythm section and backup singers for their song "Laughing and Singing 'Till the Early Hours of Morning."\nThis type of enthusiasm was the motivator for high school student Katie Hyde to travel from Terre Haute to Bloomington and see them perform.\n"I think (vegetarianism) is a good cause, but I really came for the music," she said. "I'll come back next year depending on who's playing." \n"We'll mix it up next year -- it won't be the same lineup at all," Glassford said. "And next year we're going to get more groups involved, and make sure they're committed to being there."\nThough attendance was low, Glassford saw the festival as a success.\n"I was pretty pleased with it," he says. "We got about 400 days (of people promising to go without meat in their diets) pledged. It's far from 10,000, but it's still great"