October 16, 2007 by Julie.

Well, this was going to be a blog about the hard hitting heavies roundtable that happened early in the morning this past Saturday at Stanford on homecoming weekend…but as the talk was long and involved (and my blogs tend to be long and involved) and as it is also apparently available on i-tunes in its entirety, i’m leaving it for now. I mean, it was cool. But it was supposed to touch on the issue of water, as well as oil, and it didn’t. I was disappointed that it didn’t touch on peace or simplicity, but rather on technology and making the internet more accessible to more people in the far reaches of the planet so that they don’t all become terrorists. Call me old-fashioned but it really does seem like consuming less and conserving resources is really the very first most common sensical thing to do…

We interviewed noone this weekend for YERT! The time was blocked out for the boys reunion (pretty handy that it was Mark’s 10-yr and Ben’s 15th). Ben and Mark were both chosen for their class panels to talk about what they are doing now, which was a great way to connect people to YERT and get some new ideas. I was along for the ride, happy to meet Ben’s old friends, happy to see people I had met once before at weddings…happy to see all their little families growing with kids running around. (If anyone is wondering, I am feeling wistful about family and HOME.)

We stayed with former Fleet-Streeter, Bill Moore, who put post-its on the light fixtures so we’d know which ones we could turn on in the house without going against our No Incandescent Bulbs rule (Thank you, Bill!) (Fleet Street is a tight-knit Stanford men’s A Capella group that both Ben and Mark were a part of. In fact, it is how they met). I played finger soccer with Bill’s young son, Clayton, and then watched as they set up the maddening Candyland game…We went to supper at Jing Jing’s with the current Fleet Street crew. Who are Younglins. That’s all I am going to say. Babes still in the woods. They’re making them younger all the time or something. We watched their 2 songs at the end of the homecoming show and my boys got nostalgic about their time and waxed on about how much things change…that’s what reunions are for, I guess.

The massive outpouring of support from friends old and new about what YERT is doing felt good. People want to know what is happening, what we are finding out in our trip around the country, and what they can/should do. We were happy to oblige…

I am feeling a little bit burned out on environmental bad news but fortunately Mark has been all over the planning for Los Angeles. And fortunately, our hosts, Jason and Aria Mayland today provided me with my favoritest kinds of distraction and stress-relievers ever: recording sessions and yoga class, respectively.

Ben is still working on that dang Illinois pod, and I am staying out of it. Good Luck, honey. I am going to bed. Tomorrow: into the fray that is LA.

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October 13, 2007 by Julie.

Just really quick before I hit the hay,
i have to say that this morning’s news was welcome.
AL Gore has now won the Nobel Peace Prize, on top of winning the Oscar for Inconvenient Truth.

So, I can’t help but wonder: Will Al Gore run again for president?
Cause I believe I would vote for him if he did…

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October 12, 2007 by Julie.

Well, we arrived in California and were shocked to find Fox News broadcasting Live from the gas pumps at Chevron. WHAT??? IS GOING ON???

We have fancy emails out to Arnold (Schwarzenegger) and Ellen (DeGeneres) but are not holding our breaths. Mom seems desperate for us to try to contact Leonardo DiCaprio but we haven’t time to try to have his people call our people… oh wait, that’s just us…

Time marches on and Ben is still editing the Illinois pod (hence our 3-month check-in video.) hopefully to finish tonight so that the boys can enjoy their respective Stanford reunions tomorrow.
It’s a new moon.

Here, I’ll finish off Oregon as well as i can:
Just before we left Portland, Ben and I stopped by the BTA (Bicycle Transportation Alliance) of Portland to interview Scott Bricker about Portland’s amazing track record. During the interview Ben popped down the hall and set up another interview with the communications director the the Portland light rail system (TRIMET). Mary Fetsch, you are a trooper. (That lovely woman stayed and talked to us on-camera for over half an hour even having just endured a crown replacement and the right side of her face waking up.) The interview was wonderful, there were tons of people using the service, and the footage of the trains going by was fantastic. Well, potentially fantastic. I haven’t exactly mastered the art of avoiding passersby when shooting…We even saw people getting on with their bicycles…

The drive to Eugene was rainy and uneventful, except for the numbers of Subarus. We landed somewhat wearily at Mark’s relatives, who were gracious and wonderful and already fully on board with everything YERT is trying to do. Michael said that he sometimes worries that his 9-yr old twins are on the verge of becoming environmental nazis. Go girls, go!

We closed the transportation triumvirate with an interview at LTD Rapid Transit bus system in Eugene. This innovative bus system has dedicated bus lanes in the middle of the street with grassy medians and, since its inception 4 months ago, has seen ridership increase by over 50 %.
(I’ll check those numbers for tomorrow as i am getting sleepy and less than precise). A pretty good way to keep those cars off the road, and give commuters a chance to get some more work done on the way to work, ahem.

A delicious dinner followed by stimulating conversation and solid sleep prepared us for this morning’s drive to Ashland. The weather was beautiful. We parked the car at our hosts’ house, walked down the hill past all the Tibetan prayer flags and Subarus, ate Italian and then sat to watch As You Like It at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. (The man who played Touchstone was wonderful.) Don’t mind if we do.

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October 11, 2007 by Julie.

Googling Oregon on the Internet, we kept finding “greenest state in America,” so we entered Portland with pretty high expectations of environmental…ness washing over us and the YERT camera. Like every other environmentally conscious place we’ve been, the Subarus are here in spades…

Even though YERT wasn’t sure that we’d captured completley the green essence of the city, we decided to take a few hours off on our last night in Portland and just be human, visiting our already-green families. Ben and I went to Jason and his Marcelle’s house, ate grape tomatoes out of their beautiful organic backyard garden and joined them for vegetarian dinner at a local local eatery while Mark continued visiting with his family (Carl, Darcy and little Kieran) and doing homework.

Monday was Columbus Day, which we kept hearing was a holiday… We set out in the morning with sleep in our eyes, determined to catch some commuters cycling over the Hawthorne Bridge on their way to work. Ben and Mark set up camp on the downtown fork of the bridge and i set off in search of…what else…coffee. (Surprisingly, Starbucks on two adjacent corners was the “option.” I was kind of expecting some kind of organic local brew? Call me spoiled…i DID just come from Seattle.) Anyhow, we got one interview with a cyclist and a couple with pedestrians, and got some nice footage of the bicycles passing autos on the bridge.

Next, we headed over to the headquarters of gdiapers to talk with its founders about the benefit of compostable diapers as an antidote to the environmental impacts of “50 million disposable diapers entering the landfill every day, where they sit for up to 500 years…” I was excited to talk to co-founder Jason Graham-Nye because I grew up nannying for families that used cloth diapers and some who used “disposables.” The former uses a LOT of water to clean and the latter is just SO MUCH WASTE. My brother and his wife used compostable diapers for their son, Miles, and loved them, so I bought gdiapers for my two girlfriends who were having their first babes. Girls? In between feedings, you wanna let me know how that’s going?
Moms, I encourage you to check gdiapers out, they’re AMAZING!!!

While we’re on the subject of waste, I’ll skip ahead a day because we went to visit Bring Recycling “Planetary Improvement” Store in Eugene this morning, a veritable bounty of a salvage yard, and I am inspired. Dad you would have been thrilled. Bring is proud to be “one of the nation’s oldest non-profit recyclers.” I asked Julie Daniels if we should be thinking: Reuse, Reduce, Recycle, in that order - and she said, “Rethink. We want people to rethink how they are buying things in the first place. We want them to understand that the biggest amount of energy is used in the initial product manufacture, and to rethink how much stuff they really need to buy in the first place. Then, if they have to recycle something, they can bring it here.”

Bring’s mission is beautiful:

and hasn’t changed since they began as a non-profit organization in 1971, but there are some new things: They are now bonded and licensed to help people in the deconstruction of their property. If someone is remodeling or demolishing, they can hire Bring to come and take it all their salvage away, which is a useful service since proper recycling of demolition materials is required by Oregon law. (yay!) This extra income has afforded the company the support to move to a new location with much more space, and to begin to retrofit existing buildings into a solar energy-powered office complete with living roof, bio-swales with native plants to catch stormwater runoff, filtering toxins that spill onto the parking lot from visitors’ cars and machine parts that are recycled there. From what we can see, Bring walks the talk. The “new” office’s walls used to be the roof of Babes topless bar, the lighting fixtures are the ones that were already there, just with much more efficient bulbs, the bathroom floors are inlaid with random pieces of salvaged marmoleum, and the outdoor decks are recycled telephone poles and TREX.

Go Bring!!!

And the icing on this garbage cake is art! Bring has an eye to aesthetic, and a belief in the importance of art in a sustainable and meaningful life. There is art in the lobby for all to enjoy and regular art classes and craft reuse workshops at Bring to supplement instruction on the basics of recycling… we’re looking forward to seeing some more of this…

Oregon’s amazing recycling law

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October 10, 2007 by Mark.

California is YERT’s 17th state. Just 33 more to go! Woah!

YERT is winding its way through California in October and we’d love for you to be a part of this leg of the journey. You’re invited to a giant eco-bash (eVite event is here, Facebook event is here) with three easy instructions:

1. BYOB: Bring Your Own Bowl! And silverware, cloth napkin, cup, etc. We are trying to produce minimal waste at this event. Bring your most colorful dinnerware to show off…
2. Bring a local or organic food item! This is a potluck, so bring something tasty and healthy to share with the tasty and healthy guests, and let me know what you plan to bring…
3. Bring a story! Bring one anecdote about a change that you made in your life this year to reduce your planetary impact. Even one CFL bulb will do.

We’ll have photos projected on the wall, you can see our year-to-date garbage, and we’ll all be able to share stories about this crazy eco-movement. Also, if you know friends in SF, send them the link! We’d love to meet and make new friends.

• Location: Jeremy’s Flat, 698 Missouri St., San Francisco, CA 94107
• Time/Date: Wednesday, October 24, 7:00PM
• RSVP: Please reply via eVite or Facebook.
• Questions? Contact Mark Dixon, 415-672-5537, mark@yert.com

That’s about it! Carpool if you can… vote against coal… catch your rainwater… eat less meat… recycle… buy less crap you don’t need… and enjoy the process of letting go!

Festively Yours,

Mark

mark@yert.com

YERTYERTYERTYERTYERTYERTYERTYERTYERTYERTYERTYERTYERTYERTYERT

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October 10, 2007 by Ben.

Ever considered keeping a compost bin in your car 24/7? Or how long you could go without turning on an incandescent light? Or what it might feel like to be completely dependent on a hankie? Neither did we…until this trip started.

Three months in, the YERT team takes a look back at the first 95 days with a mix of joy, delirium, and a much higher tolerance for questionable odors. We’ve had some wonderfully unexpected adventures along the way and covered some unbelievable territory - each day is like peeling the next layer of an onion that at once fills us with dread and hope for the future…sometimes the onion even makes us cry. Or, adapting a simile from our interview today with gDiapers in Portland: Life on the road is like changing a diaper…you never know what you’re going to get, but it’s bound to be interesting.

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October 8, 2007 by Julie.

Hello, we are in Portland…Oregon this time, one of the best bicycling towns in America, we are told.
We went to Roots Organic Brewery last night and tried their Heather beer made without Hops…Ben and I are still not much into beer but what did excite us was the Sustainable Resource Directory of Portland, basically this sort of “greenpages” book of green and sustainable businesses, from landscapers to dentists to mutual funds to housecleaning. It’s THICK, like our yellow pages in Astoria, Queens! Wow. Impressive. We realize we will never have enough time to cover the sustainability of Portland.

Well, the Office of Sustainability never did call us back though we actually did try to get ahold of them a full week and a half before getting to theri town.
But we did get to meet with Amber Clayton of the Portland Bureau of Environmental Services on Friday when we rolled in. She met us at a local house to show us how residents altered their existing yard by turning their traditional grass lawn into a “rain garden” that makes use of native plants (like Xeriscaping in Colorado) and collects rainwater in pools (not like Colorado where they’re not allowed) in order to decrease runoff into sewers. She showed us how the house’s downspouts were changed from running directly down into the sewer system, which is how many homes’ spouts are configured, to running horizontally out into the yard swales where water can be absorbed and filtered before slowly making its way down. We filmed Amber driving away in her awesome Smartcar! Cutest little car on the market for all of you single girls who are not looking to start a family anytime soon and who feel too naked on a scooter…

Oh, Carl and Darcy took us to the most delicious pizza joint called Hot Lips that was happy to serve us on pizza trays with no garbage! (Thanks, guys!!!) but I had to include a picture of this amazing car parked on the street that was completely covered with beads…yes, the entire car is completely beaded. NOt environmental, perhaps, but totally cool.

We are looking forward to filming the mass exodus of cyclists on their way to work tomorrow, over the Hawthorne Bridge, and hopefully we’ll get a chance to talk to some of the commuters about how they like biking to work… maybe even get sme words from the BTA (Bicycle Transportation Alliance) about how Portland got to be so darn bicycle-friendly…

singing off for now…sleepy…

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October 7, 2007 by Julie.

We spent the first two days rainy days in Seattle at Snowden and Dana’s house, catching up on homework, and getting to know baby Adele. It’s definitely getting colder. I wonder: Is it more environmentally responsible to buy new organic warm pants or to go to the Salvation Army and buy someone’s old still-warm pants? I know which is friendlier to our wallet…

It seems the big environmental issues in Seattle are specifically related to a rapidly growing population along its coast: Stormwater runoff into Puget Sound from new and existing developments is listed as the #1 toxic pollutant and Seattle is concentrating hard on Waste Management/Recycling issues. Snow & Dana told us that, along with providing regular trash and recycling bins, the city now also provides composting bins for lawn and food waste. Councilman Conlin told us that 30% of all collected garbage in Seattle is foodwaste, and his “zero waste” plan for Seattle capitalizes on this potential soil resource by collecting it from individual homes and restaurants and composting it offsite. Pretty cool.

Then there is the Sound. When we first arrived in Seattle, we spent our first freezing windy Saturday at a beach cleanup on the edge of Golden Gardens. Ben and Mark interviewed volunteer beach cleaners, and filmed people chopping up invasive locust runners and picking up garbage off the sand while I hid in the bushes for windbreak with purple lips, chattering teeth and travelmug of coffee, waiting for my wonderful brother, Andrew, and his wife to show. Once they arrived, it was joyful visiting time for me, and I thank the boys for being understanding…and for agreeing to warm Indian buffet for lunch…

One of the people we met at the beach clean up, Sue Joerger, runs a non-profit called Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, that takes Industry (and sometimes government agencies, ie:EPA) to task for violating the environmental laws that protect the Sound and the creatures who live in and use it. We joined Sue on an excursion through the Sound to the Duwamish River and saw firsthand the impact that Industry has had on the profile of the Sound. Machine after machine after machine are the water’s edge, with 1 or 2 feeble attempts at reclaiming tiny wetlands areas looking sad indeed. Sue told us that her little nonprofit of only 6 employees sues 30-50 companies a year for not complying with pollution regulations and that, once fined, the companies usually do not violate again! (yeah, Sue!) But the laws are not strict enough to support the health/restoration of the salmon population, which she said has decreased 95%.
(You read that number right. I asked her twice.)

Salmon are unique to the Pacific Northwest, and are sacred to the Native American tribes who live in the area. We took the ferry across to the Peninsula and met with Rob Elofson, River Restoration Coordinator for the Lower Elwha Klallam Indian tribe. The tribe started asking the federal government more than two decades ago for the deconstruction of 2 dams along the Elwha River, in order to restore the natural ecosystem and hopefully see a return of a healthy salmon population, which are key to their culture and traditions. When it was discovered that bringing the dams down would actually be cheaper than renewing their licenses and keeping them operational, the decision was made to deconstruct and so, in 2012, the Elwha and the Glines Canyon Dams will come out and the river will begin to be restored. These aren’t the first dams to be deconstructed but they are the biggest.

Olympic National Park spokeswoman Barb Maynes talked to us in the soggy rain for about an hour in her wonderful Park Ranger hat (not shown in this picture as it hadn’t started raining yet), standing in front of one of the doomed dams. She is optimistic about the effects that the dam removal will have on wild animal and plant life restoration around the river and in the Park, and is looking forward to seeing a return of diversity there. She did say that one of the misconceptions of local recreational fishermen is that the Tribes are responsible for the decline of the salmon population, and she assured us that is simply not the case. There is tons of information out there but basically there was a court decision made by Judge Boldt in 1974 (called the Boldt Decision) that gives Western Washington Native Tribes a right to 50% of fish harvest, and all other recreational non-tribal fishermen a right to the other 50%. Of course, if the fish population is down 95%, then all fishermen are unsatisfied with the outcome. Not surprisingly, Native Americans understand the reason for the decline and wish to restore the natural land while recreational fishermen (at least the ones we talked to) choose to blame the decline on treaty rights to fish, and want simply to change who gets to harvest and how.

Rob Elofson stressed the importance of studying the river area following the removal of the dams, including reintroduction of Salmon to the area, hatcheries, reclamation, fishing, etc., so the effects of the reclamation on the ecosystem can be assessed, and learned from. He hopes that the removal of the Elwha and Glimes Canyon Dams will be a positive example of how we can begin to undo the damage done to our ecosystems by unnatural alteration for irrigation and power. I asked Barb Maynes how long she thought it might be before the river would actually be restored to its pre-dammed state, so that we could plan our return to see it in its glory. She thought about 20 years. That’s a date.

**Rob: I hope very hard that soon enough we will all realize that WE ARE the natural world, as you do. For now, we will travel around proudly wearing our new Tribal ballcaps emblazoned with the words: “Bring our Dammed Salmon back!”

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October 6, 2007 by Julie.

Seattle: As expected, a bounty of coffeeshops and people running, biking and walking regardless of the weather. Also, in keeping with our observations thus far, Seattle’s high percentage of Subarus seems to directly relate to its high percentage of environmentally conscious citizens…In fact, does someone want to start sending around a petition to Subaru re: a Plug-in Hybrid? because, from what we can tell, Subaru owners would have bought that ticket decades ago.

(*side note: I also noticed an abundance of Naturopathic/Homeopathic Clinics, for the first time on this trip…)

We enjoyed talking to Seattle City Councilman Richard Conlin about new legislation allowing pygmy goats as Seattle pets but, more to the topic, about his optimistic goal of Zero Waste for the city. Using a combination of education, opportunity and incentives, legislators are proving environmentalism a no-brainer for the few financially-myopic holdouts. Conlin says that he doesn’t have to work terribly hard since Seattlans generally pride themselves on being “environmental.”

Lovely eco-Entrepreneur Amy Tucker explained the birth of her brainchild, uber earth-friendly Xeko Games (Endangered Species trading cards- SO COOL - Definitely check them out, particularly if you have kids!). She then toured us around the dang cute neighborhood of Fremont (aka the Center of the Universe), introduced us to our first taste of Truffle Oil French fries at the Baguette Box (which she allows herself once a week), and then hooked us up with a fabulously impromptu and decadent tour of Theo Organic Chocolate Factory by owner and fellow enviro-businessman, Joe Whinney. As nice as he is brilliant (in my cocoa-tinted opinion), Joe is “proud to be the first roaster of Fair Trade Certified™ cocoa beans and the only roaster of organic cocoa beans in the United States.” Which is WONDERFUL but frankly, once we got a taste of his divine chocolate in our yaps, we just really didn’t even care all that much about knowing the details.

I have to say, whatever the reason, the happiness quotient at both Xeko and Theo seemed wonderfully and ridiculously high, and I have to recommend them both, for anyone visiting the Fremont area. Just watch out for the Troll under the bridge. He’s got a thing for Volkswagons…

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October 6, 2007 by Julie.

Ok lack of good sleep, good exercise or real downtime have taken a toll on my psyche so my apologies for not being on top of my game…I will be getting back to the travelog and etc., but for now let me just sort of say where we are at today.

We have just completed our 3rd full month on the road. yay.

We are in Portland, OR, staying with the family Wildes who just treated us to the most wonderful blue cheese garlic tomato pizza at Hotlips. (Thank you, Mark’s cousin, Carl, his sweet wife, Darcy and babe, Kieran) We got interviewed this morning at a Starbucks and we interviewed a lady today at someone’s house…and got some more interviews lined up…

We got some packages sent here for us that were cool. The organic YERT T-shirts that we ordered through zazzle came (girls sizes are pretty small, onesies are super-cute) and also our Klean Kanteens came. So now I don’t have an excuse not to drink enough water.

We just spent the last week or so in the state of Washington where I took a record number of photos and got to see my brother Stephen Andrew and his lovely wife, Yves, which was wonderful, and where we spoke to our first Native American on this trip, as well as our first National Park Ranger.

We are still trying to figure out how to do everything and there is still not enough of us to do it. I finally had to leave the boys upstairs and come be by myself bc the discussions are making me totally stressed. I know they’re important and all but I find them maddening. I was going to blog but then I got down here and i cannot concentrate. And I feel fat.

Hormones aren’t helping. Still, it’s a worthy gig. I’ll be better tomorrow,
when the Portland Farmers Market is hosting cheesemakers of all kinds.
That won’t help the fat part, but it will probably taste awesome.
signing off, the girl portion of this trip,
julie

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