Once visitors to the Mariposa Folk Festival passed through the front gates at Tudhope Park last weekend, they saw the Sustainable Orillia booth where they were invited to watch a wee model car running on
hydrogen fuel sourced from water, hear a radio powered by a solar panel, sort photos of various waste products onto the appropriate “bins,” and win a Dave Beckett print by correctly guessing Canada’s “overshoot day.”
Overshoot day marks the date when our collective demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year. Put simply, it’s a measure of “how much nature we have and how much nature we use,” as the Global Footprint Network puts it. 
Margie Sider of Marchmont nailed Canada’s overshoot date in the festival contest – March 13, and she won the prize generously donated by the artist himself – Dave Beckett. Guesses ranged from February 2nd to October 21st, with the majority of people guessing dates in July. Congratulations to Margie!
If the rest of the world lived as Canadians do, we would need more than four planets to provide for us. By March 13, 2023, Canada had already consumed its fair share of the Earth’s bounty for the year. Collectively, humanity won’t pass its 2023 Earth Overshoot Day until July 28.
Joining the festival booth team this year were two new leaders of the Sustainable Orillia Youth Council, President Kate Sontag (Grade 12) and Vice President Anna Bivol (Grade 11).
The Mariposa Folk Foundation joined Sustainable Orillia at the festival booth, reflecting the good cooperation between the two groups. MFF kept track of the number of plastic water bottles avoided at the festival (through the use of the refillable water bottle station) on a giant poster. With no single use plastic water bottles, and all festival food containers compostable, the legendary Mariposa Folk Festival is one of the “greenest” festivals in Canada, with new initiatives every year to make it even more so. Next year’s festival will benefit from an external environmental audit conducted this year by MDE (Music Declares Emergency).
We have only one planet—planet Earth. We’re learning – albeit too slowly – how to live on it sustainably.