The Coolest Use of GoogleEarth EVER, MTR Sucks, and I Interview Ashley Judd!

So I just have to share one of the coolest applications of GoogleEarth ever. Assembled by a team at Purdue University, it paints a vivid visual picture of where and how CO2 is being generated around the country on a county by county basis. Pretty detailed stuff. It's called, appropriately enough, "Vulcan" after the Roman god of fire and smelting and all that. I suppose it's just a matter of time before someone puts together the GoogleEarth application "Venus" that graphically (and graphically) illustrates how many people are either making, falling in, or falling out of love in different parts of the country. Maybe then we can accurately determine whether or not "Virginia Is For Lovers."


I was sad to see that in absolute terms, Jefferson County, KY, where I'm currently living, is a major producer of CO2 emissions - mostly from power plants, but also significantly from onroad activity. Of course that's to be expected as Louisville is a major population center, but even on a per capita basis it's still just middle of the road at about 28 metric tons per person per year. That's a lot of CO2 (and this is based on 2002 data, so I imagine the picture is even more bleak six years later) - and we REALLY can't afford a lot of CO2. The reason for the poor showing is that KY gets well over 90% of its power from burning coal, making it one of the most coal-dependent states. And coal is, from beginning to end, one of the dirtiest and most destructive sources of energy there is. Luckily, KY is not taking this lying down.

Last Wednesday the 17th, I was lucky enough to attend a march and rally by more than 700 people against Mountain Top Removal (MTR) coal mining at the capitol in Frankfort, KY. While we hear a lot these days about "clean" coal and carbon sequestration, I Love Mountains Day, as the rally is known, shines a light on the devastating effects of the front end of the coal power generation process - this year the focus was on the 1400 miles of rivers and streams that have been destroyed by MTR and the dumping of mining waste into watersheds - and that process is anything but clean. MTR coal mining is absolutely ruining entire communities, watersheds, and ecosystems in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern KY and much of WV - one of the most biodiverse regions on the continent. And it's just gotten worse in the last 8 years.

In addition to prominent speakers like Congressman John Yarmuth, one of the keynote speakers at the rally was none other than Ashley Judd, who grew up in the area of KY that is now under seige and has become an outspoken critic of MTR and coal power. She spoke very knowledgeably and passionately about the need to end our dependence on coal power once and for all and to use this opportunity to build a sustainably-powered economy. She was very gracious to grant me a brief private interview after the event (particularly given that I was functioning on an hour of sleep having just pulled an editing all-nighter and was operating a camera I'd never used before and was, therefore, a bit of a bumbling zombie). She highlighted once again that the choice between a clean environment and a thriving economy is a false choice that we need to not buy into. Too true. Who knows, maybe I'll send Ms. Judd a link to GoogleEarth "Vulcan." I'm sure she'll find it interesting.

Finally, check out coal's unflattering stats in this early YERT video about coal in PA. As the bumper stickers in KY say - 'Clean Coal' Is Like 'Dry Water.'

Reagan and Carter go Head to Giant Head...and I Talk to President Polk. Yes, THE President Polk.

This week I finished putting together the latest fun YERT video - a Presidents' Day special which, while we're now several days past Presidents' Day, is at least out in the blogosphere before Washington's Birthday. Our YERT travels took us to President's Park in Lead, SD where 20-foot concrete President heads abound and one feels like a boy among giants - literally. To make this video, I decided to comb through hours of old audio and video recordings of actual presidential speeches to piece together Lincoln's thoughts on current population trends, Roosevelt's attitude about the stimulus plan, and Reagan's real feelings about Jimmy Carter's solar panels on the White House. Check out the video below and the accompanying blog with all kinds of goodies at YERT's blog.




The fringe benefit of all this is that I now know more about presidential speeches than I ever thought possible. And having listened to countless hours of inaugural speeches and addresses to the nation, one thing is clear - the more things change, the more they stay the same. Reagan's and Carter's inaugural addresses are particularly interesting from a political history and positioning perspective, and FDR's fireside chats are incredibly relevant these days. But perhaps most timely and touching are Carter's energy speeches (most of all his "malaise" or "crisis of confidence" speech of 1979). I would contend that he was the most honest and thoughtful president we've had in the last 60 years, maybe more. Unfortunately, while it's an admirable human character trait, in Carter's case naked honesty proved to be a political liability. Thirty years later, perhaps we are finally ready to hear that 1979 speech again and take appropriate action. One point of interest is how our attitude toward coal power has evolved as our understanding of its relationship to climate change has crystallized - there was little if any concern about that in Carter's era. I can't help but think that we're now reaping the results of having not listened to Carter thirty years ago. Let's hope we can improve on that soon.

13 Terrifying Climate Facts on Friday the 13th!!

So I look at my inbox this morning and what do I see? Those crazy environmentalists trying to scare the @#%$ out of me with their "13 Scary Facts for Your Friday the 13th." I'd completely forgotten it was Friday the 13th until some poindexter armed with things like "information" and "scientific data" and "logic" started trying to spook me with "facts" like:

* 34% = Percentage that 2008's Arctic seasonal sea ice melt outpaced normal levels.

* 1.5 million = Number of acres of forests in Colorado destroyed by the pine beetle, which is better able to survive warmer winters and is wrecking havoc in America's western forests.

* 70% = Increase in the rate of Greenland's ice melt over the last five years.

Don't they know that gay marriage is MUCH scarier than the world melting? I mean THAT's how you're supposed to scare people. Sheeeeesh!

Luckily, tomorrow is Valentine's Day. So we can all console ourselves about our impending doom with sex and chocolate. Or, for those with too much free time, sex IN chocolate. If you plan on indulging in some chocolate on V-Day, may I recommend Theo Chocolates - a fantastic chocolatier we came across in Seattle on our YERT travels and "the only Organic, Fair Trade, Bean-To-Bar Chocolate Factory in the US." They even give tours of the factory - Willie Wonka eat your heart out!

I'm keeping my sex recommendations to myself, but to see the aphrodisiac effects of chocolate check out the end of this YERTpod.




Of course, if you're single and broken-hearted you'll likely want to console yourself ABOUT Valentine's Day with the fact that it looks like the world is ending anyway. Consider those 13 scary facts a sort of schadenfreude pick-me-up.

cheers,
-Ben

My New Blog

Hey everybody (or the 2 people who might actually read this), I have a new blog :). To kick things off, I've taken the liberty of publishing a few posts from the last year and a half that were written as drafts in my old blogger blog before being posted on the YERT blog, so feel free to peruse them below and...um...relive the "glory days"? Rest assured, I will be writing fresh new blog material on a regular basis, though I may also occasionally pull over some relevant posts that I wrote/write for the YERT blog as well.

That said, as winter and the economy continue their frigid ways, many of us dream of taking our unemployment checks and jetting off to some tropical shore - after all, isn't free time the silver lining to being jobless? For those looking to get away from it all, here's a little video about a new kind of carbon-free air-travel that's...er...taking off. Best of all, it's cheap. People I talk to about the YERT trip always ask me how we got to Hawaii on a road trip. Well, ask no more...


wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

The hardest part was working my tray table in the wing suit.

To see what we actually did once we got to Hawaii, check out this YERT video: