There seems to be a meme going around about places that people would like to see before they die so figured, hey, what the heck…there are some places I would like to see before I die too so why not join in! Here are the first 10 that popped into my head, in no particular order:

The Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt

The Great Wall of China

The Acropolis in Greece

The North Pole

The Ruins of Machu Picchu

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water House

The Taj Mahal in India

Not exactly a place, but I would like to travel by train all over Europe

The Northern Lights

Yankees Stadium - at a Red Sox Vs. Yankees Game

Check out the lists that some friends have created, and feel free to add yours in the comments:

Jeff @ My Super-Charged Life

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EarthTalk is a weekly installment from E/The Environmental Magazine.

Dear EarthTalk: Are there any efforts underway to green the air travel industry? It seems to me that it must be one dirty business from a pollution standpoint.

Environmental battles over the siting and expansion of airports are as old as the air travel industry itself, but only in recent years have the airlines themselves been under pressure to go green.

And there’s no time like the present for the industry to take some action: Air pollution from commercial jets is a growing concern among scientists, as is air travel’s role in climate change because of the more acute warming effect of emissions when they are disbursed so much closer to the upper atmosphere.

According to the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, an independent group of scientists that advises the British government, emissions from aircraft will likely be one of the major contributors to global warming by the year 2050. According to USA Today, on a flight from New York to Denver, a commercial jet generates between “840 to 1,660 pounds of carbon dioxide per passenger. That’s about what an SUV generates in a month.”

Despite still gloomy times for the industry post-9/11, a few are actually responding to the call. Virgin is blazing new trails as part of a $3 billion investment in energy efficiency. The company is experimenting with biodiesel and ethanol—fuels derived from crops—and has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in ethanol-related businesses. But don’t expect to ride on a biofuel-powered jet anytime soon.

Airplane makers are getting in on the act, too. Boeing successfully flew the world’s first hydrogen-powered, fuel cell airplane in April 2008. A company spokesperson called the plane—a small one-seater—“full of promises for a greener future.” Boeing is working to develop a commercial version, but uncertainties about hydrogen production and distribution put this advancement well into the future, too.

So what can consumers do to fly greener today? Sharon Beaulaurier of GreenLight magazine suggests choosing airlines with newer, more fuel-efficient fleets such as JetBlue, Singapore Airlines or Virgin.

She adds that direct flights are better than those with stopovers, as frequent take-offs and landings use more fuel than when the planes are cruising. She also recommends avoiding airlines and airports with bad track records for delays, which leave planes idling and spewing greenhouse gases for hours unnecessarily.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) runs AvoidDelays.com, which helps fliers choose airlines and airports based on on-time departures. Airlines with poor records include American, Atlantic Southeast, ExpressJet, Mesa and United, according to NATCA, which also calls Chicago’s O’Hare, New York’s LaGuardia, Newark, Philadelphia and San Francisco the worst airports for catching on-time flights.

Meanwhile, the European Union wants to require airlines touching down in Europe to participate in continent-wide carbon reduction programs already in place. Backers hope it will cut Europe’s exponential growth in airline emissions in half by 2020. Some carriers oppose the plan and are fighting it in court.

CONTACTS: Virgin Group, www.virgin.com; Boeing, www.boeing.com; AvoidDelays.com, www.avoiddelays.com

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881 USA; submit it at EarthTalk; or e-mail us. Read past columns at our archives.

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For a few days last week, my wife and I went up to Big Sur, California to stay in a yurt at Treebones Resort. What’s a yurt, you ask? Well, according to Wikipedia, it is “a portable, felt-covered, wood lattice-framed dwelling structure used by nomads in the steppes of Central Asia.” And while I did not see any nomads from Central Asia while I was there, I did get to see plenty of lizards, hawks, California Condors, whales, seals and sea-lions. First off, let me say that if you ever have a chance to stay in a yurt for a few days, I highly recommend the experience. As you will be able to see in the pictures below, it is a far cry from camping while still allowing you to be in touch with nature - and as my wife put it, it was like summer camp for grown-ups. The people running Treebones were incredibly nice, especially Marty, who seemed to always be around in the main lodge whether it be at 7am for breakfast or at 8:30pm for dinner. The yurt that we were assigned to, #4, was not directly on the water but we could still see it from our deck. However, just taking a few steps down the hill gave us a full view of the Pacific Ocean. The Northern California coastline is a lot different from our coast here outside our door at home, as development is pretty much off-limits and it is very quiet and desolate. Which was exactly what we needed! More on our trip later, but first - some of the 250+ pictures we took while we were up there:

A general shot of the yurts from down below

The inside of our yurt, #4

Another shot from inside our yurt, looking towards the door

Me, after enjoying lunch on part of our drive up the coast

Cool waterfall draining directly into the ocean at high-tide

Standing on our deck

Another yurt on the premises

We also visited a redwood forest where we hiked in about a mile to this grove. No trees were harmed in the posing for this photo

Now that we are back from our trip, I have to say we have a sense of sadness in coming back to reality. Up at Treebones, it was so quiet at night that all you heard was the wind blowing around the yurt and the shaking of pine trees. (and occasionally the kids in the yurt next door…) We sat outside really late at night and just stargazed for hours. No ringing phones, no internet, no television or Tivo…it was quite liberating! The yurts were warm enough with the propane heaters, but I do wish that they had wood fireplaces instead, and the beds were very comfortable. I highly recommend that anyone heading out to the Big Sur area check out Treebones Resort. The people are great, the food was good, and the experience was unbeatable.

As for the “green-ness” of Treebones, they are doing both great and a few not-so-great things up there. First off, the entire place is off-grid, in that they have a propane generator that makes all the power, and the extremely hot heat exhaust created from the turbines is used to heat the pool, hot tub and radiant flooring in the lodge. Cool, huh? That’s the good news…now for some bad news. The facilities use paper cups for everything, whether it be for drinking water during the day, juice at breakfast, or a cup of coffee from the “always-brewing” coffee in the lodge. Luckily my wife remembered to bring her reusable coffee mug; I, however, forgot mine. And instead of hand towels or air driers in the bathrooms, they use paper towels, and it looked like they were not using safe cleaning products, but maybe I missed them. My wife did leave the owners a comment about this in the guest book, and I had a nice conversation with a woman at the front desk about “going green”. We struck up a conversation about my wife’s reusable water bottle she was carrying on our way out, and she mentioned that the owners were looking for more ways to go green. Great news! This is where I mentioned that I ran this website, and I will be sending her some information this week about ways that I think they could be more green and environmentally conscious. It would only take a few simple things and a small investment for them to be totally “green”!

I think that’s enough for now, but if you are ever near Big Sur, you should check them out! If you want any more info about the place, feel free to drop me a comment or an email and ask away!

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If you live in the Los Angeles area and are looking for fun, outdoorsy thing to do on a weekend (that doesn’t cost a penny), I suggest a very drive down the coast. Other than having to take our car there, it was a beautifully “natural” day we spent on Saturday down near Palos Verdes. We had never really spent any time down there and decided that we should check out the whale watching spot and a few other things, so we took off in the morning for the day. What a different world! First we stopped at a lookout that stared out at Santa Monica Bay and we looked back north to our house after hiking into the wildflowers a little bit (on a path, of course!):

Then we drove a little further south and stopped at the Palos Verdes Point Vicente Interpretive Center which is supposed to be a premier place to look for whales as they migrate north between December and May. We did not see any, but judging by the amount of people staking out a spot overlooking the water and Catalina Island I guess someone sees them! According to their “whale watch” board, they had seen 6 whales that day! Unfortunately they all decided to show themselves when we were not there, but we enjoyed the beautiful weather and the sunshine anyway. I guess in the “old” days there used to be a “Sea World” type place on these grounds - they had all sorts of memorabilia inside the little museum on the premises.

Just thought I would share in case any readers lived in the LA area - it’s a fantastic place to check out if you have never been down there. Here is the route that we took, outlined in green:

Oh, and sorry the pictures are not so great - the genius that I am I forgot our good camera and had to use my phone!

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If you happen to live in the Los Angeles area and you have not checked out Descanso Gardens up near Pasadena in La Canada Flintridge, you are really missing out. We went this past weekend for the first time - I cannot believe I have lived in L.A. for almost 13 years and had never been there. Granted, a lot of the flowers are not in bloom yet, but there is a bunch of other stuff to see, like a Japanese Garden, mini-waterfalls, and several Koi-fish ponds. Descanso is 160 acres of nature trails and flower/plant exhibits, and it makes for quite a relaxing day away from city noise and traffic. Here are some pictures we took while we were there:

We had a very nice day wandering around the trails, listening to the birds and checking out all the fish. When we were done we headed into the town of Montrose right down the street and had a great lunch at a local diner. If you live in L.A., you gotta spend some time up there in La Canada Flintridge - it makes for a great escape!

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It will if President Bush has his way. He wants to cut 40% from Amtrak’s budget…and they are barely making due as it is now. When we took our Amtrak trip in December, I spoke to both of our car attendants and they each mentioned the fact that Amtrak has no money and they have been slowly cutting a lot of service. If Bush’s budget goes through as is (which won’t happen, and although unlikely, Amtrak’s budget could stay in), we can expect to see Amtrak either seriously cut back and/or stop service altogether on some lines. While every other major country on earth is investing heavily in high-speed rail travel due to emissions from flying and the cost of fuel, the United States acts as though it wants to cut train travel out entirely and only subsidize air travel.

From ENN:

Around the world, high speed rail is the happening thing. In Europe 6,000 kilometers (3700 miles) of high-speed lines are due to be built by 2020, tripling the length of the existing high-speed network. China is expected to build 3,000 kilometers (almost 1900 miles) of high-speed railways within 15 years. Argentina has recently announced plans to build a 710 kilometer-long (440 mile) line from Buenos Aires to Cordoba — the first high-speed line in Latin America. Morocco is considering high speed rail also powered in part by renewable energy - solar. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel, Turkey, Portugal, Russia and Sweden are all considering high speed rail. At least fourteen other countries already have it.

And according to Bush’s new 2009 federal budget:

Airlines, which are public companies, are going to get over $1 billion in subsidies through the FAA.
Amtrak, which is a government private “company”, is going to only get an $800 million budget.

How about we switch those around and spend money where it is needed most, George? Pretty soon the U.S. is going to look like we have the trains of the Wild West compared to the rest of the world!

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