April 22, 2008 by Mark.

Dear YERTians,

We hit the streets of Times Square to find out if Earth Day was on the minds of New Yorkers. Problem is, as any New Yorker can tell you, almost no one in Times Square is actually from New York. Still we did learn a lot about Tuesday and soon found ourselves drawn to Central Park in search of some real Earth Day celebrations. We were not disappointed.

We also have a few exciting announcements to share– the first is that we have re-launched our website! We hope you’ll spend hours browsing around (http://www.yert.com), where you’ll find a handy trip dashboard that lets you check out my mood, Julie’s "preg-o-meter," and Ben’s shower tracker. We’ll be updating the site daily, so you can get the very latest scoop on (y)our journey.

Our second bit of happy news is that we were recently featured on Voice of America! We were contacted by Rosanne Skirble at VOA, who spent an afternoon with us while we spoke to people walking along the Mall in Washington DC. We had a blast with the interviews in every direction, and we think you will, too. She also highlighted a few folks/groups/ideas that we had covered in some of our videos: The Intervale in Vermont (from YERTpod10), Scott Brusaw at Solar Roadways (YERT Conversation 19.1), our Melting Arctic (from Bear Necessities), and bike commuters in Oregon (YERTpod22). We’ve seen text and audio versions of the interview so far. Fingers crossed for the video version coming soon…

That’s all from NYC– next state: OHIO!

YEaRThfully Yours,
Mark, Ben, and Julie

Your YERT Team (team@yert.com)

P.S. For more ideas about Earth Day in New York, check out these websites.

• Central Park Conservancy
• milliontreesnyc.org
• Earth Day NYC
• Official Earth Day 2008 Action Center

Posted in Events, Video, Ben, Mark | 1 Comment »

January 31, 2008 by Ben.

Dear YERTians,

As some of you may remember, back in late September we included a poll with our Vermont video pod - YERTpod10: Seeding is Believing in Vermont. The video was packed to the gills with snippets from a number of different subjects and interviews. In the hopes of doing a little more justice to at least one of those subjects, we polled you, our viewers, and asked you to tell us which of our seven primary subjects you wanted to see more of in its own video. Well, the votes are in (truth be told, they were in four months ago but this road trip thing is quite the time sink and it’s taken us this long to carve out the time to make good on our poll) and we are delighted to announce that the winner is….. Yestermorrow Design/Build School!

So without further ado, here is a slightly more in-depth look under the hood of our favorite alternative to traditional architectural thinking, not to mention our favorite hybridization of two words - YESTERMORROW (a place so creative and environmentally inspired, we’re almost sure that somewhere on the other side of the planet, just to keep the universe in balance, there must be another school called DAYTO that teaches nothing but Soviet-era concrete block construction using nothing but petroleum and coal). We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Balancing,

Mark, Julie, and Ben (Your YERT Team)

team@yert.com

YERTYERTYERTYERTYERTYERTYERTYERTYERTYERTYERT

Posted in Video | No Comments »

December 13, 2007 by Mark.

Dear YERTians,

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you find a tiny park stationed on a road in downtown Salt Lake City. Filling a parking space. Police walk by to make sure that there are quarters in the meter. There are. All is well, for now.

Just another day in the life of a relatively new eco-artistic tradition called Park(ing) Day, started up by a San Francisco-based art collective known as “REBAR.” The idea debuted in 2005 as a creative mind-bending art project designed to make you think twice about public spaces. And it works. At least twice.

YERT was delighted to find ourselves in a Park(ing) Day city ON Park(ing) Day! We drove downtown and met up with the Park(ing) People, and did things that we never imagined possible in a busy city street: touch football, croquet, sitting on a bench, strolling barefoot through the grass, chillin’ on a stump, and making all sorts of new friends. Oh yes—we breathed in a fair amount of car exhaust, too. But it was worth it. Julie won her first game of croquet that day.

Charmed by Sod,

Mark, Ben, and Julie (Your YERT Team)

team@yert.com

P.S. And now for the Breadcrumbs! If you’d like to find out more information, check out the links below…

• Here is a little blurb about REBAR, straight from the Park(ing) Day website: “REBAR is a San Francisco-based art collective. Much like a DJ samples recorded sounds, REBAR appropriates elements of the physical/cultural world and remixes them into novel contexts. By “remixing the landscape” in this way, the group exposes new meanings and alters assumptions about our shared environment. REBAR projects engage social, ecological, and cultural processes as they unfold materially in space and time. While the group’s work can be used or interpreted as playful, ridiculous, or absurd, it is also highly functional. REBAR remixes the ordinary, repurposes the ubiquitous, and rebuilds with invisible structural material . . . much like rebar itself.”
• Park(ing) day is also organized by The Trust for Public Land, and Public Architecture. If you’re not sure what a land trust is good for, go back and review YERTpod10: Seeding is Believing in Vermont.
• The event got some great press, with articles written by The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

YERTYERTYERTYERTYERTYERTYERTYERTYERTYERTYERT

Posted in Video | 1 Comment »

September 22, 2007 by Mark.

Dear YERTians,

The only things more pervasive than uplifting environmental stories in Vermont were the Subarus. Everybody we met seemed connected to everything…

…to the land
…to the food
…to each other
…to a Subaru
…even to a peaceful kind of inner wisdom.

Just click here or the picture below to watch "YERTpod10: Seeding is Believing in Vermont"

Somehow Vermont was unique, and delightfully so, but why? As we explored these connections in conversations with all stripes of Vermonters, including Mayor Bob Kiss of Burlington, we repeatedly encountered the concept of a “land trust.”

Wikipedia helped us understand that “A community or conservation land trust is an organization established to hold land and to administer use of the land according to the charter of the organization.” We’re still learning about what all that means, but it seems that land trusts can help local communities increase their control over the way their land is used. If the words confuse you, try this imagery instead: A large, pristine, flowering meadow on what appears to be extremely valuable real estate next to a highway. Completely undeveloped. Simply a beautiful view. And it makes all the difference in the world. It makes us love Vermont.

We had difficulty boiling down our Vermont experience into a tiny little video, so we’re asking you, our viewers, to tell us what additional footage you’d like to see in one or more longer videos. Our editing time is painfully limited, so please vote in the poll below on the following options…

1. Kit Perkins, Executive Director of the Intervale Center. This unique institution acts as a farming incubator, and their stated mission is “To develop farm-and land-based enterprises that generate economic and social opportunity while protecting natural resources.”
2. Guided tour of the McNeil Generating Station, a power plant fueled by wood chips from sustainably-harvested forests. John Irving, McNeil’s Plant Manager, gave us a personalized tour of every nook and cranny in this facility, not to mention a candid assessment of the pros and cons of wood-fired power generation.
3. Gil Livingston, President of the Vermont Land Trust (VLT), helped us get our heads around the concept of a land trust and its benefits to folks (and critters) in Vermont.
4. Dan Bradley, Transportation Planner for the City of Burlington, gave us a ride in the city’s experimental hydrogen-powered Prius while discussing the challenges and opportunities of hydrogen-based transportation.
5. Bob Ferris, Executive Director of the Yestermorrow Design/Build School. This creative institution gives designers, architects, and hobbyists an opportunity to hone their eco-building skills.
6. Phil Rice and Daniella Malin, from the Sustainability Institute in Hartland, Vermont, showed us around the Cobb Hill intentional community and introduced us to some award-winning cheese cows, not to mention the innovative systems-based approach they bring to environmental sustainability research.
7. Mayor Bob Kiss of Burlington helped us connect to many of the various “dots” in our Vermont eco-exploration. Mild mannered, friendly, and full of common sense, it was refreshing to speak to such an interesting and interested community leader.

With Love for Vermont, and All Y’all,

Julie, Mark, and Ben (Your YERT Team)

team@yert.com

<a href="http://www.micropoll.com/akira/MicroPoll?mode=html&#038;id=54760">View MicroPoll</A><br /> | <a href="http://www.questionpro.com" title="survey software">Survey Software</a><br /> | <a href="http://www.micropoll.com" title="web polls">Web Polls</a><br /> | <a href="http://www.contactpro.com" title="email marketing software">Email Marketing Software</a><br />

P.S. And now for Breadcrumbs! If you want to learn more about the topics in this video, check out these resources:

• By at least one Canadian measure, Burlington VT is the "Greenest City in the U.S.A." This article in the Toronto Star also names Mayor Bob Kiss America’s greenest mayor. We’re absolutely un-stunned by this result, but the article is a fun read from a foreign perspective. (Country Home magazine also names Burlington the "Best Green City in America" in 2007.)
• It seems that the Vermonter way of life is good for citizen health. This survey found Vermont to be the "Healthiest State" in 2007.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »