At an Earth Day fair one would expect to find displays on clean energy, recycling, and green building design. Indeed many such displays were found at last Wednesday's Earth Day Fair on Library Mall.

However, what seemed strikingly out of place were the two pro-nuclear energy groups. Some may remember one such group for pushing the Madison InfoShop out of its space on University Square, these are the freemarketeers of CFACT, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow. At the Earth Day Fair, these self-described "evil capitalists" shared their wealth of knowledge with the student body through catchy slogans such as "hug capitalists, not a tree" and "nuclear energy is good for you." But before you could say "Chernobyl" or "biodiesel" these young folk cleverly responded with "we believe science, technology, private property rights, and a free market are the cures to our not very ailing world and nuclear energy is good for you."

Ironically, folks from the Madison InfoShop located at 1019 Williamson Street, who were involved in the planning of the fair as part of the annual week long Earth Day to May Day celebration, were stationed next to CFACT. Although CFACT, funded by Gulf Oil tycoon Richard Mellon Scaife, Chevron, and ExxonMobil has a budget four times as large as that of the InfoShop, it was only the InfoShop that was able to provide substantial information and literature. Their table offered factsheets on everything from labor issues to GM foods, all of which their attendees were able to place in the context of Earth Day. Although the CFACT table offered a free hippie dunk, the activist resources offered by the InfoShop, such as books, videos, and signs, not to mention cool stickers and patches, were much more compelling.

One highlight of the fair was a large wooden contraption built by Steve Burns of MATC that measures how much carbon is released into the atmosphere when you drive your car. Participants chose a vehicle and adjusted one lever for that car's mileage and another lever for the hypothetical miles driven, which in turn moved an arrow to the amount of carbon produced on that car trip. Participants could then feel the weight of carbon gas that would be released into the atmosphere by lifting up ten to forty-pound bags of solid carbon. For example, a compact car driving from Madison to Devil's Lake and back would release around 40 pounds of gaseous carbon into the atmosphere, about the weight of a midsized dog or a really fat cat.

Other highlights were the Campus Vegetarian Society and the UW Soils Club. Think you can be a meat-eating environmentalist? "NO!!" maintained the campus vegetarian society, as they handed out home made veggie burgers and pro-vegetable propaganda, asking students to sign the "veg-pledge" and go vegan for a week. Don't know how to cook vegan? Think it's too hard to be vegan? Worried about going hungry? These crazed vegetable eaters are offering FREE vegan cooking demos and vegan dinners every night this week. In today's age of fish-scaled hydroponic tomatoes, the vegans were able to rest assured that some produce is still grown in the ground.

The UW Soils Club displayed a profile of Dane County's dirt, some of the most fertile soil in the world. The club aims to educate community members on good stewardship of the land and how soil produces food, and believe it or not, unlike this week's vegan meals, most vegetables aren't made for free! One of the biggest soil problems facing farmers today is soil erosion. Although there are many technologies aimed at alleviating this, all of them cost something, herbicides pollute and mechanical means require oil and labor. A sustainable solution to this is reducing tillage, but that would mean our community would have to support sustainable growing methods or people would have to stop producing babies to feed. But we wouldn't let something as ridiculous as population control get in the way of our red, white, and blue streak of independence. We solve our food shortages with old fashioned colonialism, factory farms, while wars and prisons take care of our hungry poor!

For more upcoming Earth Day to May Day events, check out the Madison Activist Calendar.