Jay at Arthur Magazine pointed out a sweet muck-racking documentary film called The Coconut Revolution that you can watch free in its entirety here. Here are the first few minutes of the film:

This is an incredible modern-day story of a native people’s victory over Western globalization. Sick of seeing their environment ruined and their people exploited by the Panguna Mine, the Pacific island of Bougainville rose up against the giant mining corporation, Rio Tinto Zinc. The newly formed Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) began fighting with bows and arrows and sticks and stones against a heavily armed adversary. In an attempt to put down the rebellion the Papua New Guinean Army swiftly established a gunboat blockade around the island, backed by Australian Military personnel and equipment. With no shipments allowed in or out of the island, the People of Bougainville learned to become self-dependent and self-sustained.

Much to my delight, a great new restaurant – Elevation Burger – just opened within a few steps of my work. So this place, I’m kind of embarrassed to admit, is a chain. However, it’s a very small (~10 restaurants and growing) chain with organic fast food, baby! I know, it’s a bit of an oxymoron, but if you can bury away your inner ideologue, you’re going to totally enjoy it. 100% organic, grass-fed beef burgers make eating ‘em just all that much less guilt-ridden. Plus, they have some killer vegan and veggie burger options and olive oil-fried french fries. Add on super friendly kids working there and a clean, well-designed aesthetic and you’ve got a combo for one hell of a cool burger joint. Check ‘em out.

First, the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System in mass transit map style:

Update: Jackson West at Laughing Squid found the artist behind the map:

Boulder, CO artist Chris Yates created an abstract, London Tube-style map of Dwight Eisenhower’s Interstate highway system which you can buy as a print for $12 plus shipping.

(via Notcot, Amy Kathryn)

And then, sorta related – a graphic estimating how many years we’d have left on this planet given that we continue to consume resources at the rate we do today:

(via Caitlin Hill)

File under: WANT. The ingenious folks at the sustainable product design and engineering shop called Studio Gelardi came up with this masterful lil’ tool for your bike. Seems as thought it’s still in ‘concept’ mode, but I can’t wait until it gets manufactured. Given the buzz it’s getting, I won’t be surprised if that happens soon.

Cool Hunting sez: “The small apparatus attaches to any bike’s seat tube and applies a thin layer of chalk powder in one of several colors to the rear tire. The result is an eye-catching streak that traces wherever you ride. In addition to visually enhancing the street, it serves as a directional guide for subsequent cyclists and a constant reminder to motorists that they should share the road.”

Now that it’s getting nice (relatively) out again, almost spring, we’ve been stepping it up a bit on the running regimen. Today was a gorgeous sunny winter day, so we decided to head down to the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge for a jog around the water. Turns out, this is a spectacular spot to go running.

The small loop trail is very well maintained, there is hardly anyone there, the visitor center is a great warming hut for cooling down and getting a drink of water, and the one loop is 3.3 miles around which is just about 5k. Perfect!

On top of that, it’s only about a 10 minutes drive down just past the PHL airport. And it’s terrific to be in a quiet nature preserve with lots of wild birds and information signs and bird lookouts like this:

Audrey and I have a soft spot in our hearts for the Pine Barrens in New Jersey. It’s one of the most wild areas on the East Coast, and lord knows we love wilderness. As it happens, our friend Allan (aka Lord Whimsy) knows a heck of a lot about the nature and history of the area and loves trecking out to the cranberry bogs in search of interesting stuff. In case you missed it, I took some of my favorite photos of the year on our orchid hunting adventure last spring. It was bitterly cold out – only 5′F and windy – today, but we had a great time exploring.

As always, there are many more photos on my Flickr page here.

[photo: Salt Lake Tribune]

I just wanted to give a quick shout out to this badass activist that I learned about while in Utah. His story isn’t in the national mainstream news yet (that I know of), but it was well covered in the Salt Lake Tribune which I read over coffee every morning over coffee at my in-laws. You should know this story.

Remember that shit that Bush pulled earlier this year, opening up a ton of America’s wild land to oil and gas exploration to help out his buddies on his way out the door? Land that is literally next door to our most incredible National Parks like Arches and Canyonlands?

Well, graduate student Tim DeChristopher went ahead and bid on a ton of those contracts… and WON! thereby throwing a vitrual wrench into the process. Obviously, the bad guys are pissed. Please read more about what’s going on, this amazing citizen action and the undoubtably horrible legal process that is now descending upon him. Maybe we can raise the money and help just buy out these contracts and preserve the land.

Edward Abbey would be proud. <3 <3 <3

Just took this photo on my lunch break. Strange how something so ugly can be so beautiful.

Arthur Magazine’s blog Magpie has been fantastic reading for the past few months. At least once a week I find something fascinating being delved into with reckless abandon. It’s fresh and interesting. I highly recommend you checking it out if the mystical, the psychedelic, the musical, the dreamy, the progressive political strike your fancy.

Today, they post about The Miss Rockaway Armada a group of self-made Mississippi River pirates floating downstream from end to end on a crazy raft made of recycled, reused and repurposed materials. Fun! Here’s a quote from the gang:

We want to create: to invent a new sustainable way to travel, to demonstrate different ways of living and moving that are friendlier to the environment and to each other, to indulge in that essential urge to make something out of nothing. We want to meet people: to learn from new folks along the way, to teach what we know, to share our art, our music and our performance, and to make new friends. Finally, for adventure: to reclaim and reinvent the old American urge to strike out and discover the vast, mysterious land we inhabit and see it for ourselves.

I love adventure, but I really love cool weirdo stuff like this. Living passionately is the only way to be!

One of my favorite film festivals in the world is MountainFilm (I’ve attended 7 of the last 8 years!). It’s more than just a film festival, it’s a celebration of the indomitable human spirit. In an era of post-terrorist cynicism, these folks bring together some truly positive thinkers and media makers.

They’ve really been on the move over there in Colorado, launching a great new blog and making a bunch of big announcements today, including announcing their new festival director, David Hollbrook (.pdf). Congrats, David!

The next festival is their 30th(!) and it’s happening May 23-26, 2008. Lord knows I’ll be there. I’m one of the lucky ones who gets to work tech up in the projection booth at the festival and shake hands with all the amazing people they invite to speak. I got to meet one of my heros last year, Paul Hawken, and chat it up for a good five minutes while we worked on setting up his program. But it’s really that kind of festival. Hang out, chill with awesome folks with big ideas, change the world. You know. Fun.

If you’re a filmmaker and you’ve got work you’d like to exhibit in Telluride, head over to their Call for Entries form. They’re looking and they’ve got a $10,000 prize purse! Also, they send their films on tour, so check and see if they’re coming to your town soon. Chances are they are.

Portland and I have a long, mythological relationship. I’ve only spent a grand total of sixteen or seventeen days there spread over four or five visits and passing-throughs. But it’s always lurked around my mind as one of the greatest cities in America, embodying so many ideals I want in a lifestyle. Biking, sustainability, art, music, proximity to wilderness. Oddly, even though I’ve gone on and on about “someday soon I’ll be moving to Portland” during the travel years of my twenties, I never have. And I wonder if I ever will. Once, in the fall of 2002, I even packed my car, ready to move, but somehow through a strange twist of fate, ended up in Philly for a year before moving back to Colorado.

Who knows. Maybe I’ll get my stint in Portland yet.

Being that I am a big advocate of riding a bike to save gas, every now and then in our lovely suburbanized America, we can’t avoid using a car. (News flash: those of you think you’re saving the environment by driving a hybrid: you’re not.) Today, I got this email from my grandfather’s buddy in the oil and gas industry. Not sure if this is a spammy email forward making the rounds, or if he really actually knows this dude, but it sounds good.

Behold, a geek’s guide to saving gas (other than driving less!):

1. Fill up your car or truck in the morning when the temperature is still cool. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground; and the colder the ground, the denser the gasoline. When it gets warmer gasoline expands, so if you’re filling up in the afternoon or in the evening, what should be a gallon is not exactly a gallon. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and temperature of the fuel (gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products) are significant. Every truckload that we load is temperature-compensated so that the indicated gallon age is actually the amount pumped.

A one-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for businesses, but service stations don’t have temperature compensation at their pumps.

2. If a tanker truck is filling the station’s tank at the time you want to buy gas, do not fill up; most likely dirt and sludge in the tank is being stirred up when gas is being delivered, and you might be transferring that dirt from the bottom of their tank into your car’s tank.

3. Fill up when your gas tank is half-full (or half-empty), because the more gas you have in your tank the less air there is and gasoline
evaporates rapidly, especially when it’s warm. (Gasoline storage tanks have an in ternal floating ‘roof’ membrane to act as a barrier between the gas and the atmosphere, thereby minimizing evaporation.)

4. If you look at the trigger you’ll see that it has three delivery settings: slow, medium and high. When you’re filling up do not squeeze
the trigger of the nozzle to the high setting. You should be pumping at the slow setting, thereby minimizing vapors created while you are pumping.

Hoses at the pump are corrugated; the corrugations act as a return path for vapor recovery from gas that already has been metered. If you are pumping at the high setting, the agitated gasoline contains more vapor, which is being sucked back into the underground tank, so you’re getting less gas for your money.

5. Do not top off your gas tank, when the pump shuts off, do not keep trying to add more gas………………a friend who owns a gas station says that by doing this, you are actually giving the next customer a $1.00 worth of gas. The gas you pump stays in the hose and never makes it to your tank………..good to know.

Really, a bicycle is the vehicle of the gods, in my opinion. The most sustainable, healthy, and fun way to get around. In an age of Peak Oil, this is an awesome little way to show why biking rules. I just read about this great meme on the Nau blog: stickers, t-shirts and patches to show your love for your non-fuel consuming, human-powered vehicles. I had the idea for a sticker for the downtube of my bike: “Zero Emission Vehicle“, but I might just get one of these. Dig it. Go get yours and support the cause Zero Per Gallon website here.

And let me leave you with this lil’ poem from Jonny5, the purveyor of the project:

BIKING KICKS ASS
• Biking is fun. Biking is fast.
• Biking is quiet. Biking is cool.
• Biking is healthy. Biking is simple.
• Biking costs less for us.
• Biking costs less for our cities.
• Biking costs less for the planet.
• Go ride a bike. And spread the word.

I’ve seen these glaciers up close while I was adventure guiding in Alaska and I can tell you, surfing like this is completely insane. But totally awesome. Speaking of Alaskan surfing adventures, have you ever seen someone surf the tidal bore on the Turnagain Arm? I have. It’s also awesome. Nothing cooler than a ten-mile tidal wave.

Ride ‘em while you can, folks. We’ll be out of glaciers in a few years.

Hat tip to Vagabondish.

I’m a huge fan of Edward Abbey, of course, but particularly his book Desert Solitaire. In it, Abbey vehemently laments new construction of roads into Arches National Park in Utah while he was a Park Ranger. An outspoken advocate of keeping wilderness wild, Abbey hated watching the wilds over run by exhaust- and filth-spewing machines (see quote below).

This is a really shocking map graphic (click image to enlarge) from the U.S. Geological Survey showing how little of America remains truly wild – and roadless. It makes me very, very sad, and I’m sure Abbey is rolling in his grave. I’d tell you to go to the wilds now before they disappear, but I suppose that’d be advocating the very act that destroys wilderness. If you do go, remember to Leave No Trace! And maybe walk or bike there.

Just don’t be one of the “fat pink slobs who go roaring over the landscape in these over-sized over-priced over-advertised mechanical mastodons are people too lazy to walk, too ignorant to saddle a horse, too cheap and clumsy to paddle a canoe.” (Ed Abbey)

Thanks, Adventure Blog for pointing this out.

Since I recently blogged about my sister Rebecca and mentioned her eco-friendly, fairly traded maternity clothing line, Schone Maternity, I called her to see how she was doing. Things were not looking good. She was overloaded with work being a one-woman operation, fearing the debt her business was racking up, and stressed out about screwed up orders from her factories. It ain’t easy running your own business, that’s for sure.

But then this morning, she sent out a wonderful email that I just had to share and write about! First of all, her line is being featured in next month’s O (for Oprah) Magazine! WoWza! Check page 170 in the upcoming October issue! And see photos above – the new photos from her Spring ‘08 line. Hot!

And then she got some uplifting encouragement from one of her clients. She says, “I met a customer (buyer for a store in Hawaii) yesterday who actually hunted me down- she only visited the showroom because she wanted to find my line! She asked me when I’m going to start a regular fit line because as she said, ‘obviously you’ve got natural style, I’m sure any line you do would be amazing.’ Nice to hear, I need a little ego boost every once in a while ”

Sometimes, when things look so hard and futile, those little nuggets of encouragement make all the difference. My sappy note for the day: go out encourage someone you know. They’ll appreciate it.

What will our world look like if we disappear in an instant? How long will it take to wipe our mark from the planet? Not long, it turns out. It’s a fascinating look into the fragilities of human-made creations and systems. But also a great reminder that, heck, environmentalism is a human-focused pursuit. The Earth is gonna do fine without us. I like that thought. Frees me from the shackles of recycling anxiety, if nothing else.

(thanks for pointing this out, Audrey!)

Technorati Tags: experiment, books, worldwithoutus, environment, sustainability

[thanks BoingBoing]

Technorati Tags: sustainability, city life, strawbale, boingboing, diy, freedom, housing, howto, art, offthegrid

Don’t get me wrong, I read the damn thing every single day, clicking on over in between work jams to check up on what the world is talking about (can we even call it ‘news’ anymore? or was ‘news’ always only what people were talking about?).

So today, they have this article that goes on and on about how antlers in fashion and design are the next big thing. God, this is a stupid article. They get various annoying New York designers and fashionistas to chime in and give their two cents on the symbolic nature of antlery and what it means about society at large. If that weren’t enough piss you off, because who can stand New York art elite telling us what’s hip in the first place? most of the people equate the trend to an off-shoot of the eco-chic groundswell.

Nature — or the appearance of embracing nature — is chic these days. Judging by the direction of fashion and home décor and of-the-moment restaurants and shops, you might mistake Manhattan for Montana.

Are you serious? Isn’t it obvious that dead megafauna hanging from the walls is more anti-eco than anything? And let me tell you, most New Yorkers do NOT know anything about Montana outside of Big Sky. If you’ve spent any time in a ski town like Telluride, for example, where I lived for four years, you’d see that antlers are exactly what megarich ski mansions THINK the West is about. Cutting down massive trees in old-growth forests, then bulldozing a few acres for their 15,000ft trophy homes they only come to for two weeks of the year and hanging a ‘cute‘ antler chandalier. So eco, baby! So rustic, Bob!

Okay, and for the record, the trendy antler thing, well, my best friend Norm started it all on Halloween of 2002 when he wore a 15-pointer on his friggin’ chest to a party. People were FREAKED OUT. They’d be giving him high-fives today cuz he’d be the hippest dude there. But, see, we’re past all that silliness. The only antlers you’ll see near us is on a can of good old workin’ class Schmidt’s Beer (so workingin’ class, they ain’t even got a web site!).

Technorati Tags: antlers, trends, fashion, sustainability, funny, schmidtsbeer, NYTimes, povertyjetset, philosophy

I just read an incredibly interesting article about the revolutionary thinker Stewart Brand in the NY Times. It talks about his new ideas on the environmental movement, a group he divides in two: the romantics and the scientists.

Mr. Brand predicts that his heresies will become accepted in the next decade as the scientific minority in the environmental movement persuades the romantic majority. He still considers himself a member of both factions, just as in the days of the Merry Pranksters, but he’s been shifting toward the minority.

“My trend has been toward more rational and less romantic as the decades go by,” he says. “I keep seeing the harm done by religious romanticism, the terrible conservatism of romanticism, the ingrained pessimism of romanticism. It builds in a certain immunity to the scientific frame of mind.”

I find the idea really interesting. It’s been a nagging sensation in me for a while now, this idea that eating organic and drinking filtered water won’t save the planet. I mean, it’s obvious, but we do it anyway. But I love what he says, too, about energy, for example. I find myself on the brink of this very same thinking…

“It is one of the great revelatory bets,” he now says. “Any time that people are forced to acknowledge publicly that they’re wrong, it’s really good for the commonwealth. I love to be busted for apocalyptic proclamations that turned out to be 180 degrees wrong. In 1973 I thought the energy crisis was so intolerable that we’d have police on the streets by Christmas. The times I’ve been wrong is when I assume there’s a brittleness in a complex system that turns out to be way more resilient than I thought.”

I guess we’ll just have to do our best. Wait and see. And try not to be overly romantic about organic mineral water from Fiji.

I’m still dreaming of building an off-the-grid cob house on a mesa in the desert, though. No one can convince me that I can’t ward off the apocalypse on my own!

Technorati Tags: stewartbrand, endoftheworld, environment, povertyjetset, sustainability, idea, apocalypse, psychedelic, 60s