YERT: Your Environmental Road Trip

Freshest, most original media treatment of any topic I've seen in many a year. Loved the idea, the framework, the pacing, the brains, the humor, and most of all, the good will. It's "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" meets "Save the Planet." Ben, Julie and Mark have managed to bust through the rhetoric to create something magical in the form of YERT. They say what needs to be said and then move on to the next leg of the adventure. How much we could all learn from this simple technique. But something simple, and also high-quality, is rare indeed. May God bless these young idealists in all their camera-slinging travels. Can't wait to see what's next.

"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.

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.

Join the antics of three friends who start a year long journey originally in honor of Rachel Carson, and end up with a new child, a lot of stories, and many practical illustrations of people empowered to take action! This film just makes everyone want to try the game- all my garbage for a whole year in one box? Really? You should see the effect this has on people from so many dimensions. The humorous approach and the very personal story links us to the effort and draws us in. The characters the YERT-ians encounter along the way are so interesting and also inspiring. You come away from this film feeling ready to do just whatever you can, and knowing several places to start right away with your own journey. Everyone should see this film!

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!!