YERT: Your Environmental Road Trip

I absolutely love this film. I am a high school science teacher and I use this film to teach human impact for my ecology unit. It is wonderful because it shows the reality of things happening all around us while being positive. I feel it is unique to this topic because so many films give the doom and gloom feel. For young people, we need to educate and INSPIRE!! I have had 15 year old students cry, get angry, and get excited all from watching this film! Buy it, share it and educate with it- it is truly powerful!!! Wish I could go on a YERT 2 and would love a follow up on some of the amazing people met throughout the film!! Don't waste another minute......you have to watch this film!!

"YERT - Your Environmental Road Trip" is an entire environmental film festival wrapped up in an absorbing and entertaining, fast-paced two-hour documentary that's both personal and planetary. Friends Mark, Julie and Ben pack themselves into a Prius to tour all 50 states in 52 weeks while aiming for near-zero garbage.

We view environmental problems like Appalachian mountaintop removal, Alaska permafrost melt, and post-Katrina wetlands habitat destruction, southwest water depletion. We meet problem-solvers like Wes Jackson restoring perennial prairie grasses, farmer Joel Salatin cycling animals through pasture to build soil, and Will Allen growing plants and fish to feed the city.

This well-produced overview of important environmental issues and sampler of creative responses is optimistic without being pollyanna. We loved it. Smiles amid the serious stuff and the inspiring innovators.

I can't speak highly enough of not only the YERT film, but their entire production. They walk the talk. They spent the many years they produced this film, living the smaller footprint lives they lived while filming their journey. I've known them for over 4.5 years since I met them at the Green Festival (i'm briefly in that segment of this film! :) I was in the process at the time I met them of embarking on my own very similar environmental road trip film (by bicycle) to visit 100 sustainable communities (www.withinreachmovie.com). I have forever been inspired by their effort to hold on to the trash they produce. In fact I have lived with a bunch of our trash since my partner decided to do the same thing to build a house with someday! :) All in all their use of humor instead of fear has been so refreshing and the most effective tool to keep me (and hopefully others) not only interested in saving the planet, but inspired. See this film for it's great flow, diverse range of topics that cover the entire range of environmental solutions, and for it's pure entertainment. ~ Ryan Mlynarczyk, Director "Within Reach" movie, Co-Owner Reach Within Productions (www.reachwithinproductions.com)

YERT had the potential to be a very engaging personal journey for the three characters and the audience. Although some of the restrictions they self-imposed were arbitrary or even nonsensical, it showed that they were really trying to question the things that most of us do every day without thinking. I was enthusiastic about their journey until . . . they casually announced that Julie was pregnant. And it wasn't something they had intended, but more like "Whoops! We thought that couldn't happen!" Newsflash: women are likely to get pregnant when engaging in sexual intercourse, if they are not using birth control.

It's not the fact that she got pregnant that's the issue, but that the road trip was intended to highlight the things one can do to lessen one's impact on the environment. And what is the single most environmentally destructive decision a person can make? To have a baby. Seriously.

A study done in 2009 at Oregon State University shows that the environmental impact of *not* having a child in America is about 20 times greater than the impact of doing a whole host of environmentally-friendly things like recycling, driving a hybrid, using CFLs for lighting, etc., over the course of your entire lifetime. In other words, despite everything else that Julie and Ben may ever do that's pro-environment, by having a child, they've more than counteracted them all just by bringing another little American into existence. Is this ever even mentioned? Nope. It's as if these three environmentalists were totally oblivious to the impact of reproducing.

No, I'm not suggesting that humans should let themselves die off. But I *am* suggesting that anyone who truly wants to lessen their impact on the environment should think very seriously about the effects of their becoming a parent upon the environment. The fact that Ben and Julie were just casually treating it like a whim or something they lucked into, is galling. They had the opportunity to set an example and they blew it, big time.

At this moment (of writing), I am drinking some sugar free mix out of a used Powerade bottle. Normally, I would just dump the bottle into the recycling can and wait until the 2nd or 4th Saturday of the month to bring it to the local recycling center. But tonight, I have cut out the middle man and recycled something myself.

"YERT: Your Environmental Road Trip" features three individuals who put shame to my Earth saving attempt. See, they spent a year on the road, going through all 50 states of this country, documenting people and organizations dedicated to ecological progress and anything/everything green. Along the way, they cut down on their personal trash, gauged electricity use and lived out of a hybrid - man do I feel lazy.

The trio's road trip is very enlightening, and at times emotional. At one point, they visit a man who has lost his family and friends due to his unwillingness to allow coal companies to work on his land. If they were to do so, the results would be quite drastic; removal of soil that prevents forests from coming back, black drinking water, cancer and other illnesses for residents, etc. The C in coal stands for "clean"? Doesn't look like it. For this man to continue living on his land is a last stand and a statement that far too FEW of us are making.

But, luckily, there are MANY in this country that are showing us a future worth fighting for. Like the guy who makes products out of trash. Or the company that builds Earth Ships - life supporting, carbon zero housing. How about the Solar Roadways project, that looks to change the electrical grid by making roads that collect solar energy? And community currencies like Berk Shares and Ithaca Hours? These are but a few of the exciting things going on RIGHT NOW in America. "YERT" is at its best when covering these little known gems.

So, should I feel bad that I've only contributed little while this trio has done and exposed so much? Probably not. "YERT" is not looking to shame you, but rather to inspire you. If that inspiration leads you to reusing plastic bottles, wasting less water or riding your bike more often, then all the better. No need to become a hippie overnight. Now, with your permission, I'd like to finish my drink.