It was August, but it was also Maine. The air was cool and wet and smelled of the sea. We had left the New Hampshire Farmhaus, crossed the border into Kittery Point, and kept heading east until we hit the Seapoint beach.

Seapoint is one of those public beaches that are so beautiful, the local residents try to claim it as their own. You have to have a parking sticker proving that you live in Kittery Point, or you could get a ticket for leaving your car around. But the fog was thick and the sun was dropping, so we took our chances.

The waves were low and flat and gray, and so was the sky. They met and melded just a few meters from the sand: the waves appeared to be descended from the clouds, and it seemed you could walk right out on their foamy tips and end up in the ether.

I didn’t try. Instead, I clambered over slippery rocks, inspected seaweed and shells and discarded crab traps, took a few photos, waxed philosophical while gazing at the grey sea… and that was Maine, my only time in Maine.

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: adventure, buy nothing, ecotourism, environment, featured posts, nature, outdoors, photography, tourism, travel, water, weather

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An interesting article came out recently in the New York Times: Responsible Travel, one of the first companies to offer carbon offsetting for airline flights, has canceled its program.

To me, “carbon offsetting” has always felt like a scam. The premise is well-meant: pay an extra fee when you fly, and someone will plant a tree or take another eco-friendly action on your behalf. That action’s positive impact “offsets” or cancels out your share of the pollution caused by your airplane’s emissions.

But let’s be honest: did anyone really believe this would be an effective way to save the world?

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Read the rest of SURPRISE! “Carbon Offsetting” Doesn’t Work. (392 words)

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ecotravel, energy-efficient, environment, featured posts, tourism, transportation, travel

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You know you love it. So work harder to save it.

What is Blog Action Day?

Blog Action Day is a cheesy title for an important event: one day in which the online world dedicates itself to fighting climate change. Today, the B.A.D. team at Change.org is rallying Web writers—and thusly our readers—to get involved.

Air pollution – photo by pfala

Climate change is more than just a cause celebre; it’s a very real threat, and each of us must take real action toward a healthier world. And although the issue is bigger than any one of us can tackle alone, by rallying our forces and working together with world leaders we might just be able to change things.

Today, bloggers around the world are united, spreading the world to our eleven million readers and exhorting them—no, exhorting YOU—to take action.

Why Should I Act Now?

This is a crucial moment in our planet’s history. On December 7, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will meet in Copenhagen to hash out an international agreement on environmental policy. That gives us less than two months to make sure our leaders know that we demand a fair, ambitious, and binding agreement.

The United States is a leader in clean technology, but it’s also one of the biggest producers of greenhouse gases. President Obama has asserted that climate change is an urgent threat—but words and actions are two different things. We must make sure that our leadership knows how strongly we feel about this issue, so that strong action will be taken at an international level. In short, we have to stand up and fight for change.

How Can I Take Action?

Easy! You won’t even have to move your butt from your cushy chair. Here are a few ways to make your voice heard:

• TckTckTck offers tons of information on climate change and what it could mean, as well as a petition directed at our international leadership in Copenhagen.
• 350.org is involved with the International Day of Climate Action on October 24th. Sign up now to join the petition, and to plan what you’ll do for the Earth. Also, discover the significance of the number 350.
• The Nature Conservancy offers a list of recommended Twitter and Facebook status updates that you can use to remind your friends about the importance of climate awareness.
• BlogActionDay.org has a petition to President Obama. Sign up to tell him you want decisive action on environmental issues.

More Information

Not convinced? Really? Check out these links for a little kick in the pants:

• Explore climate change in Google Earth

• Explore the Climate Orb on TckTckTck.org to see true, human stories of climate change.
• Read the Pew Center’s Facts and Figures on Global Warming to get scientific clues about the seriousness of the issue.
• Calculate your environmental impact with the top 10 carbon footprint calculators.
• Don’t despair! Explore 350.org to find out what people all over the world are doing to fight climate change.

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: BAD09, blogactionday, blogging, climate change, community, education, energy, energy-efficient, environment, green living, nature, outdoors, politics, sustainable, volunteer, weather

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Compared to the North or the West, Texas smells. It’s not an unpleasant odor, but it’s unmistakeable: wafting up from the springy earth, a mix of decay and new life. A fertile smell, fecund: the smell of a marshland barely contained. Which, of course, Austin is.

The warm night air, as the evening winds pick up, carries that marshy smell from one end of town to the other. Nights in Austin are vibrant, balmy, full of noise and activity. And so as the sun fades and the unbearable day-heat lifts, the night chorus begins: cicadas, crickets, frogs, mosquitos, gnats, chiggers, snakes, mice, rats, roaches, skunks, coons, cats and dogs all venture out into the dusk to feed. And with them come the bats.

Yes, bats! Austin, as it turns out, is home to the world’s largest urban bat colony. Inside the Congress Avenue Bridge (non-Austinites: the bridge crosses the Colorado River and is smack in the middle of town) lives a colony of Mexican Free-Tailed Bats, 1.5 million strong at its annual peak in September. The bats migrate to Mexico in winter, but spend the rest of the year tucked up under Congress Avenue: every night from mid-March to November, you can count on a spectacle as they take to the sky in search of food.

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Read the rest of One Million Bats: Austin's Uncommon Nightlife (508 words)

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: animal, Austin, bats, buy nothing, ecotourism, environment, freegan, insect, nature, outdoors, river, Texas, tourism, travel, video, wildlife

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I came to Paonia in a rideshare with a local farm owner, and all the way through the Rockies we talked geology, bees, organics, adventure, and air quality. The air in Paonia, she told me, was clear. But when we came over the rise and caught our first glimpse of the North Fork valley, what did we see? Why, a dusty dry haze in the sky.

As the day went on, the sky got darker; by early evening it was a thick, bruised purple in the west, and a mucky reddish-brown stretching up the valley. I ran into a couple of locals at the Trading Post, and they told me it wasn’t normal at all: this was the edge of a huge dust storm being kicked up in Utah and blowing all the way to the Rockies.

As the sun sank, the dust filled the air more and more, coating everything finely— including the mountains, whose snowpack turned reddish overnight. Meanwhile, the Gunnison River roared past, carrying tons of silt back down the hill. The grass and trees kept pushing out new green leaves, clear and fresh: the air and water turned the soil. It all made quite a bit of sense, in the exciting way that only major natural phenomena can.

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Read the rest of Dust Rampage: Moab Comes to Colorado! (132 words)

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: climate change, Colorado, environment, featured posts, nature, outdoors, Paonia, river, snow, spring, Utah, water, weather, wild west

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Cara and Morgan were headed to Denver, and I was too. We piled in the jalopy and sailed north, through the Carson National Forest (contents: juniper, piñon, and rocks), past big empty lands with big worn-out signs that said things like “Most Beautiful Land in Southern Colorado!” and “Lakefront Living!”. We saw no lakes, just empty grasslands and mesas with every so often an abandoned clapboard house or trailer tucked between the sage. But the mountains rode alongside us, headed north too, and they got bigger.

Yep, Southern Colorado is even more empty than Northern New Mexico. But there’s towns up there somewhere, cities even! We could tell the cities were approaching, because the air got dirty. I guess that’s the part that shocked me the most: dirty air. “The Rockies: America’s Alps”? Don’t be deluded, this ain’t Switzerland. Here on the Eastern Slope of those mighty mounds of pay dirt, this is where men live and die by the railroads, and the steel mills, and the Wal-Marts. Pueblo, Colorado: city of industry, and I mean this. We blazed through with only a brief stop at the gas super-station. I saw my first coal train: a mile of identical cars carrying identical loads of black stuff. Then I saw another one.

Pueblo fades into Colorado Springs, which bursts forth in a fount of housing developments. They trickle slowly down the hillsides, pooling along the freeway, flowing toward Denver. Denver itself starts far outside of Denver, and the downtown sits in a yellow-brown haze, lurking beneath the mountains like a teenager up to no dang good.

At least that was my first impression. Tune in tomorrow for what happened next… I’m bound for bed and none too soon. I will say this: it gets better.

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: coal, Colorado, rideshare, spring, travel

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