Boston Climate Change Rally

Carrick and I went to the climate change rally this last Saturday in Boston, and we were invited to speak to the crowd about our cross-country eco-video project as an example of one family's action for change. Representatives from many nations are meeting in Poznan, Poland to lay the foundation for the next climate change treaty after the Kyoto Protocol. Greenpeace organized rallies in cities across the U.S. to show support for the new treaty - in Boston we all met at Faneuil Hall in front of the Sam Adams statue, where there were a number of speakers, then we walked over to Boston Common for a group picture. Here's a picture of Carrick and me waiting to speak: http://www.flickr.com/photos/darenfiske/3089149702/

I spoke first for a minute about our cross-country video project and our plans to distribute it to science teachers nationally to use as a resource to teach about renewable energy and sustainable living. Carrick spoke briefly with this message:

"I have a message for the leaders meeting in Poland: the choices you make now will affect my future. Don't pass the issue of climate change onto us kids. Be bold. The young people of the world are counting on you."

Carrick and I visited several places last week to promote our cross-country eco-video project: We spoke in the auditorium at Bancroft School in Worcester to the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders, then again for the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. They were a great audience and we had a great time showing some of our videos and answering questions from the kids. I dropped by Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston with our veg-oil powered Beetle to show to the Energy and Conservation class. Carrick and I also gave a brief presentation of our project for the Mass. Climate Action Network steering committee, working to gain support from MCAN for our project and hopefully some more speaking opportunities with chapters in Massachusetts.

Be well,

Colin

New Interview: Chelsea Sexton

I have a few additions and subtractions to make this week on our destination list.

I'm excited to announce our most recent addition, Chelsea Sexton, who starred in the 2006 documentary, 'Who Killed the Electric Car?' Chelsea is a major industry advocate for plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles and will speak with us about the future of auto industry and the role that plug-in cars will play. Until recently she has served as the Executive Director of Plug In America, a coalition of individuals and organizations that advocates for the preservation and manufacture of plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) and electric vehicles.

We've also removed several destinations from the list, including our stops in Canada. We had planned on spending a week in Toronto on our return leg before going home, but $400 in passport fees is much more than I anticipated. The two stops we had set up were Zenn Motors, which currently makes low-speed electric vehicles, and Wildflower Farms, which makes Eco-Lawn grass seed. This will allow us to spend more time in a few cities in the U.S., including Austin, San Antonio, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. I also decided to take General Motors off the list - we were going to visit Detroit and make a video profile of the Chevy Volt. I tried many avenues of communication without success - I guess they're busy trying to stay out of bankruptcy. It works out much better to interview Chelsea Sexton, who can provide a great industry perspective on electric vehicles, plus if you've seen 'Who Killed the Electric Car?' then you can appreciate the irony of my replacing the GM interview with Chelsea.

Carrick and I are speaking on Monday at Bancroft School, a private school in Worcester, where we'll be speaking in the auditorium to grades 3-8. It will be our biggest crowd yet! I'm still working on being comfortable speaking to a room of a few hundred kids, but fortunately Carrick's got my back.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Be well,

Colin

Contacts!

This has been a week of good news and good networking!

I got a preview of our updated web design and it's great - such an improvement! It's a great design which makes all the important content easy to get to. I'll be making the big announcement when that goes online soon.

I met this week with Rep. Jennifer Callahan, representative to the Massachusetts State House for our town, Sutton. Rep. Callahan has been a strong supporter of the recent environmental legislation at the State House, including the Green Communities Act and the Global Warming Solutions Act. She's offered to help us network with schools and we talked about visiting the State House on Earth Day before we begin our cross-country journey. Carrick and I were also invited to give a presentation about our video project to the Sutton Board of Selectmen on January 20 at 7:00pm. It's great to have the support of our local government and their enthusiasm for our project.

I attended the Mass Climate Action Network (MCAN) annual conference at MIT on Sunday which affirmed for me the need to draw from many different groups for support of renewable energy and sustainability. As an environmentalist, I think we focus too narrowly on a single motivator like climate change and I think it's important to remember that issue is only one reason of many why people "come to the table" to work for a sustainable future. We won't succeed by trying to convince everyone about climate change - we don't have time and the work is too important. Van Jones of Green for All is a strong advocate of that broad-based appeal. Carrick and I are finding support from people of many different viewpoints - if we can do it then surely it can work on a much larger scale.

Be well,
Colin McCullough
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Vegan on the Road

We've had a full week to report on!

Carrick and I did two presentations in the last week; one at Grafton High School and also to the Boston Vegetarian Society. At Grafton High we spoke in the auditorium and showed the kids some of our videos and talked about our cross-country video project. We also talked about how much of a hot topic sustainability/ renewable energy is on college campuses, and how attractive it would look on those college applications to have done that kind of work at Grafton High. At Boston Vegetarian Society we talked to an enthusiastic crowd, met some great people, and enjoyed a yummy vegan buffet at Grasshopper Chinese Restaurant in Allston.

Speaking of eating vegan, one of the challenges of our cross-country journey will be finding vegan and veg-friendly places to eat on the road. Fortunately, there are great online resources for veg travelers at http://www.vegdining.com/ and http://www.happycow.net/. They list vegan, vegetarian, and veg-friendly restaurants state-by-state, with user reviews. There isn't going to be room to pack much food in the Beetle, so we'll be eating out much of the time. There are great veg restaurants all over the U.S. that we've heard about, and now we'll have our chance to visit them!

We have a new video up about what we've done to make our house more energy efficient. Carrick talks about insulation, sealing air leaks, programmable thermostats, etc. The link to the video is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLAdv7h3AzE

This Sunday (November 16) I'll be attending the Massachusetts Climate Action Network conference at MIT in Cambridge. I'm looking forward to meeting folks there and continuing to make connections in the environmental community!

Be well,
Colin

The Future of Our Renewable Nation

It's worth taking a look ahead to our future plans once we're finished our cross-country journey and have finished our video. Here are some thoughts about the possibilities:

1. Once the video is finished, then the marketing and distribution really begins! Right now we can show some examples and talk about our plans, but the game changes when we can show the finished product.

2. We'll continue to give presentations in schools and to groups, focusing on our cross-country video project. Speaking fees and further donations will go towards DVD duplication and distribution.

3. We'll be developing an in-depth resource for actions kids can take to make their communities more sustainable. Most resources on the web focus on adults, missing a critical segment of the population - the most important for our future! We'll develop the site and actively collaborate with the other adult-focused resources online.

4. Writing a Book - Developing a resource guide on the web for kids focused on renewables and sustainability will give us the opportunity to go more in-depth, writing a book for kids. We can get more into the success stories of kids making sustainable changes in their communities.

5. 'Do-Gooder' is the project I was working out when I had the idea for Our Renewable Nation, and I'd like to get back to it and make it happen. The idea is for a monthly potluck community group that makes no-interest loans to people in the community to help people afford energy efficiency improvements in their homes and renewable energy for their homes. It's all about investing in communities to be more sustainable.

So that's a glimpse of the future possibilities - who knows what will happen! There will be many doors that open up once the video is completed, I'm certain. We have several big events coming up in the next week, so I'll report on those next week!

Be well,
Colin

Our Public Speaking Tour Begins

This past week, we began giving presentations to spread the word about our cross-country eco-video project, making connections in the community, and gaining support for our work. My son Carrick and I are showing selections of our eco-videos, talking about our upcoming cross-country video project, and talking about everyday ways to live more sustainably.

A week ago we spoke at Sudbury Earth Decade, a chapter of the Massachusetts Climate Action Network, and again on Saturday at Broad Meadow Brook Wildlife Sanctuary, a Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary. At both talks we met some great people and made important connections.
We have five more speaking events coming up before the end of 2008, but I'm scheduling a heavy list for after the holidays are over. It's hard enough to get people to come to speaking events; I don't want to compete with the holidays and shopping! We're networking and setting up talks in a whole variety of places, including churches, schools, libraries, senior centers and civic groups. My goal is 2-3 per week until we leave in May for our journey.

This week I also began a weekly email update for people who want regular updates on our cross-country project. We'll talk about new destinations added, new sponsorships and partnerships, appearances in the media, etc. Once we begin our journey in May we'll start sending out daily email updates as we travel across the U.S. and back.

I'm hoping to have a new and improved design for our website, www.OurRenewableNation.org, within a month. What's there right now is the best I could do on my own, but we could do with a more professional appearance. Our friend Tracy Axelson, a professional web designer, has generously agreed to help us look sharper on the web. Look for the updated website soon!

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Added Destiinations: Chico Bag, Klean Kanteen, Xeko

San Francisco may be the California city to grab all the green headlines, but the city of Chico, about 3 hours northeast, is home to some great green businesses. We've decided to stick around Chico for a few days to get some interviews with our latest additions - Chico Bag and Klean Kanteen.

Chico Bag makes reusable shopping bags that smoosh down to a small pouch, making them easy to carry and store. They're made of washable, durable polyester, and can hold up to 25 lbs. of groceries. Over 1 TRILLION single-use plastic bags are used and thrown away every year, and the average American uses 300-700 bags each year. Chico Bags are a handy way of breaking the plastic bag habit!

Klean Kanteen is a Chico company that makes stainless steel water bottles which are reusable, lightweight, and a healthy alternative to plastic water bottles. Our family has a handful of Klean Kanteens and we use them all the time! 38 billion plastic water bottles go into U.S. landfills each year, with only 23% being recycled. We'll visit Klean Kanteen to learn more about the smarter alternative to buying bottled water!

We've also added another stop in Seattle at Xeko, the collectible cardgame revolving around endangered species. "Xeko is dedicated to a bright green future and preserving some of our planet's greatest riches" Xeko is a game of trading and collecting cards somewhat like Pokemon, but where kids learn about habitats and animals while they play. We'll visit Xeko headquarters to see the people behind the game!

Be well,
Colin

Our Renewable Nation DVD

The ultimate purpose of our cross-country eco-video project is to make a series of video profiles about renewable energy sites and interview people who have made impacts in sustainability, and put together these profiles on DVD to distribute to schools nationally.  The idea is for school teachers to be able to pick and choose which 5-minute profiles they want to use on a particular day.  One day they might be teaching about solar and other renewables, and they'll be able to choose just those videos that best cover that topic.  Other topics might be electric vehicles, sustainable design, zero-waste/recycling, etc.  Our mission is to inspire and empower kids to create a renewable and sustainable future, and it's important and timely that kids see what that future can look like.

Why create a DVD of 5-minute profiles instead of compiling all the footage into a documentary?  I think it's more useful to teachers in this format rather than a 2-hour linear, beginning-to-end documentary.  Watching a 2-hour video is not realistic in many school schedules.  Another reason is that each profile deserves 5 minutes of it's own time, and this way I won't have to cut any of our destinations out of our final video just because it doesn't fit into the flow.  

We're hoping to distribute our video through the National Science Teachers Association, which would give our video national distribution.  I'm working on that connection now.

Another avenue for distribution is to post all of our videos on our YouTube page, www.YouTube.com/OurRenewableNation.  We'll upload each video profile as it is completed.

That's all for now - Be well,

Colin

WeCanSolveIt.org, Verenium support

This post marks 8 months left until our cross-country journey begins, and we celebrate with some great news of support!

Verenium, a company that is developing cellulosic ethanol production, is the most recent addition to our list of sponsors! The Cambridge-based company has a research and pilot facility in Louisiana, which we'll be visiting next June. Verenium uses switchgrass, sugarcane, and "energycane" as sources to produce ethanol, with much higher yields per-acre using crops that are far less energy-intensive to grow than corn. We welcome Verenium as a sponsor and thank them for their support! You can learn more about their work at www.Verenium.com

Our latest endorsement comes from the Alliance for Climate Protection, which runs the action campaign at www.WeCanSolveIt.org:
"The McCullough family is proof of the power of living by your values. They raised their energetic sons to be champions for the climate, and now the whole family is successfully spreading the word that youth benefit when fossil fuels are replaced by renewable energy."
The goal of the Alliance is to build a movement that creates the political will to solve the climate crisis.

Be well,
Colin

Kid Power: the Ultimate Renewable Energy Pt. 2

In order for our cross-country video project to be successful, we need to give kids a good set of tools they can use to make change happen in their communities.

Our mission is to inspire and empower kids to create a renewable and sustainable future. Kids across the U.S. will see our videos - then what? Hopefully we'll help kids to feel like they have the power to create meaningful change in their lives and communities, and it's our job to empower kids with ways they can get started. It's easy for kids and adults to feel intimidated by the choices out there, so we'll break it down into 3 categories: individual, community, and political.

1. Individual
Do small choices/changes really make any difference? Nobody wants to feel like they are sacrificing, especially when nobody else is making an effort. We'll give a Top 10 list of things people can do to have a real impact - no symbolic changes that don't make any real difference.

2. Community
Creating meaningful change in the community is where kids can really shine. Bringing sustainability to communities is an investment in time and energy - people want to make sure the results of their efforts are worthwhile. We'll provide a set of action "toolkits" for kids to use as resources to start project to make their communities more sustainable. These will not be a simple list of suggestions, but a detailed, how-to with videos and success stories of others whose projects made their communities more sustainable.

3. Political
The solutions to create a renewable and sustainable future have to be non-partisan. Kids can demand that their politicians tart being part of the solution rather than being part of the problem. Why would politicians care about the opinions of kids that can't vote? Because their parents can, and because politicians want to avoid looking bad at all costs.

The Internet has many great resources for helping people make more sustainable choices, but these are geared mostly for adults. We can add tremendous value to resources online by addressing what actions kids can make individually, in their community, and politically. Green living and sustainability may be new to many adults, but these will be concepts that kids will be living with for their whole lives. Following our videos across the U.S. may be the first part of that journey, but the road stretches much farther still.

Be well,
Colin

Speaking to Auditoriums Full of Kids

Oh, the interesting twists our journey is taking us!

If you told me a year ago that Carrick and I would be speaking in school auditoriums to hundreds of kids at a time, I'd know you were crazy.

We got an invitation to come speak in the auditorium of a school; they asked us to bring some of our videos to show, and Carrick and I could talk about our work and our cross-country project, maybe inspire some of the kids by showing them an example of what a kid can do. The press came for the feel-good story - a 9-year-old kid who speaks to auditoriums full of kids about kid power - the ultimate renewable energy. Next thing you know we're in demand!

Carrick and his dad Colin - motivational speakers.

For his part, Carrick is unfazed in front of a crowd of 20 or 200. I don't think he knows to be self-conscious about speaking to a group of kids - score another for homeschooling! I, on the other hand, would have been completely terrified to do that when I was 9 years old. This project has given me opportunities to challenge myself, to get outside of my comfort zone. I believe strongly in the importance of our work, and that feeling of purpose is enough to get me out there.

Be well,
Colin

Kid Power - the Ultimate Renewable Energy!

If I had to bet on any form of renewable energy, it would be kid power.

We've all heard people say about kids "Gee, I wish I could bottle some of that energy for myself." If kids learned to harness their energy to create meaningful change, imagine what kinds of real, significant changes they could make in their own communities!

It's no secret that kids are one of the 3 pillars of advertising - people are interested in hearing stories of kids who are doing extraordinary things. We love to root for the little guy, the underdog. Seeing kids successes inspires us, perhaps in part because we adults feel that "hey, if a kid can do it..." That's just the thing though - kids enjoy some unique benefits:

1. They get less criticism - Really, who wants to publicly be seen criticizing a child who is trying to make a difference? The saying "using kid gloves" comes to mind.

2. They're better at getting what they ask for - Similarly, who wants to be seen publicly refusing to help a child who is trying to make a difference? Girl Scout cookies would never so successful if they weren't sold door-to-door by little girls.

3. Kids have the art of surprise - Kids are generally seen as being somewhat lazy, so adults never expect kids to do amazing things. Word spreads quickly when they do - parents tell their kids in an attempt to use some competitiveness to motivate them.

For the most part, kids are unaware that they have this ability to get people's attention and create meaningful change. It's not a message that is generally heard in school. The stories about kids we see in the media are usually examples of extremes: exceptional athletes, musicians, artists, actors and actresses. These often reinforce the idea that unless you have extraordinary talent, you're incapable of accomplishing extraordinary things.

That's it for now, check out Kid Power, the Ultimate Renewable Energy Part II next week.

Be well,
Colin

Our Video Contest Entries - HELP!

Here's a thought: fossil fuels are polluting...duh.

I heard an interesting take on that on the radio lately. Our major sources of electricity: coal, nuclear, oil, and gas, require government regulatory agencies to do regular site visits to make sure the power plants aren't polluting more than they are allowed to. Gotta keep an eye on those sneaky devils and make sure they're not trying to get away with anything, at least while someones watching, right? Well, that's a whole groups of agencies that no longer need to exist with renewable energy. Factor that into the cost-benefit analysis for renewables!

OK, as part of our effort to spread the word about our video project, and win some money to help fund it, we've entered a few video contests. If you could take a minute to watch and vote, it would support our project!

Climate Matters video contest:
Here are our two entries - I've embedded them here, but if that doesn't work I've provided the URLs. The video with the most views wins $3,000, so please watch and forward!

1. An Inconvenient Youth - http://vimeo.com/1611792
As the youth of today become more aware of climate change and how it affects their future, their voices will be impossible to ignore. This video features 8-year-old Carrick, who sends a message to politicians from the future generation.


An Inconvenient Youth from Colin McCullough on Vimeo.

2. 456% Renewable! - http://vimeo.com/1623929
In the U.S., we have an abundance of natural resources that we can use to reach 100% renewable energy, although many still insist we will continue to need coal, nuclear, oil, and gas. Why? Our renewable energy resources could produce 4 1/2 times as much electricity as this country uses, if we wanted to make it happen. Our politicians need to embrace the future of renewable energy!

456% Renewable! from Colin McCullough on Vimeo.

EarthKeepers Video Contest
Our entry, 'Our Renewable Nation', is our 3-minute video about the travel project. If you go to www.youtube.com/earthkeepers, you can vote for our video from the top 3. you have to be logged into YouTube, and next to our video is a thumbs-up to click to vote for our video. The contest winner gets $5,000!

Of course, any money we might win from either contest would all go towards funding our travel project!

Be well,
Colin

456% Renewable!

Last week, I talked about the three issues our video project revolves around: renewable energy, sustainability, and individuals making a difference. I want to dive a little further into the renewable energy focus here.

One of the questions we'll be asking in our video project is: what is the potential for each renewable energy technology we visit around the country? If we as a nation really drove to make it happen, Apollo-style, what percentage of the country's electricity could each renewable energy technology provide? Many Americans don't believe it's possible to have 100% renewable energy. After all, the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine, right?

I'm fascinated by renewable energy technologies, and if I had to be a dork about something it would be that. I read enough to know that, if we wanted to, we could supply 100% of our nation's power from commercial land-based and offshore wind. Of course, that comes with a lot of "if's", like a whole lot of wind turbines in a whole lot of places, upgraded transmission lines, unprecedented capital investment, political support, etc., but fundamentally it is possible if we wanted it to happen. And that's just commercial wind. Solar thermal technologies like those at Nevada Solar One (it's on the list of destinations) could produce 100% of our electricity, IF we wanted it to. So I took each renewable energy technology that we are visiting on our travel project and contacted the industry advocate organizations, like AWEA - American Wind Energy Association, etc., and asked them what the potential of their technologies were. Here's what I found:
Solar photovoltaic - 100%
Solar thermal - 100%
Tidal power - 3.5%
Wave power - 6.5%
Land-based and offshore commercial wind - 100%
Residential, backyard turbines - 20%
Geothermal electricity - 100%
Biogas from waste sources - 10%
Hydroelectric - 16%

Added up, we're able to produce 456%, or four and a half times the amount of electricity we need in the U.S. with renewable sources. And yet, the politicians and pundits continue to insist that we will continue to rely on coal, nuclear, oil, and gas to provide electricity no matter how much we invest in renewable energy. WHY? We need to be asking them why! Our country has an amazing abundance of natural resources for renewable energy. We'll show each technology in action and explain how they work. We want people to see what's real and available, then when they hear people insisting it can't be done, to question those assertions! Who and why do people insist it can't be done?

We put this message into video for the Climate Matters video contest on Vimeo.com:

456% Renewable! from Colin McCullough on Vimeo.
The more views our video gets, the better chance it has to win! Please visit http://www.vimeo.com/climatematters to see our two videos in the contest, '456% Renewable!' and 'An Inconvenient Youth'.

Be well,
Colin

Focusing on Mission and Vision

First, great news! I got the email congrats today for coming in 2nd place in the US PIRG video contest on sustainable transportation in the future! Our prize is $250, which we'll put right into the travel project account. We are currently finalists in the Earthkeepers/Timberland video contest, and we'll be entering the Climate Matters video contest very soon as well.

Carrick and I were interviewed on the EVCast podcast on Monday, talking about our green videos and our travel project. The EVCast is a daily podcast focusing on electric vehicles, which we've talked about in some of our videos. Our travel project will include video profiles of several electric vehicle companies, including Aptera, Tesla Motors, GM (Chevy Volt), Zenn Motors, and Poulsen Hybrid. You can hear our interview at www.EVCast.com, and we're in Episode #58.


From the very beginning of creating our cross-country eco-video adventure, our mission has been to inspire and empower kids to create a renewable and sustainable future. I've been focusing more on our vision lately, which is more of the 'how', and speaks more specifically about what we're trying to accomplish. I've broken our vision for the project down to 3 parts:

1. Focus on renewable energy: We'll be visiting examples of different types of renewable energy in the U.S., including wind, solar, hydroelectric, wave power, tidal power, geothermal, and biogas. By showing examples of existing and proven renewable technologies, we want to show people how abundant our natural resources are in this country, and how very possible it is to achieve 100% renewable energy.

2. Focus on sustainable design/living: We'll be showing examples of many aspects of sustainability including: zero waste, pollution-free transportation, sustainable design, green cities in the U.S., and sustainable companies and products. For most Americans, sustainable living means sacrifice and compromise - put on that extra sweater and suffer! We'll show that with a whole-systems approach including smart design, manufacturing, transportation, and zero waste, our country can make a tremendous leap forward in sustainability, with an exciting future of possibilities!

3. Individuals making a difference: Our time is not only unique in history because of our access to information, but also our ability as individuals to make our voices heard and create real change. We'll be interviewing inspiring people who used their passion on issue to make a positive difference. Our travel project itself is a testament to that: after almost 2 years of making green videos with our old camcorder, our videos have been seen by over 200,000 people, and our cross-country eco-video project will bring our message of sustainability to a much wider audience.

So now we're focusing on speaking with companies that support our mission and will sponsor our project. I'm also busy lining up speaking events for the fall and winter, where Carrick and I will show some of our videos, talk about our work, and tell people about our upcoming travel project. Plenty of work yet to be done!

Be well,
Colin

Thank Goodness for Libraries

Here's a truth: without the use of public computers at libraries, this project would not be happening. Much of the research and emailing involved is being done in between work appointments, so the public library system of central Massachusetts will have to get a big thanks in our video credits!

More good video contest news! Our video 'Our Renewable Nation' is now one of the finalists in the Timberland/Earthkeepers video contest. There were some great submissions to the contest so all best are off. The grand prize is $5,000, which would go a long way in getting us across the country next May/June.


We picked up a great endorsement for our project from Bill McKibben, eco-author and activist:
"Never doubt that one family with a lot of sweat and inspiration, and a high-speed internet connection, can save the world. These guys are doing it!"

I also added a new feature to our website called 'Your Renewable Nation', where everyone is encouraged to let us know what green things people are doing in their won communities. We'll post the submissions on the 'Your Renewable Nation' Google map so people can see what individuals are doing across the nation to be green.

Be well,
Colin

My Endorsement Wishlist

Now that we're wrapping up the confirmations for places and people to visit, the next step in project planning is to get some endorsements for our project! Having some well-respected and recognized names in the field of sustainability to publicly endorse our eco-video travel project would go far in gaining much-needed publicity and would help in trying to get sponsorships. One thing I've been trying to get across when I've been emailing with people to interview is that this project is very real and we're quite serious. This is no 3rd grade science fair project. It's worth their time and participation.

So while I'm free to dream big, I came up with a Top 10 list of people that I would love to get endorsements from:

1. Paul Hawken, author
2. Bill McKibben, author
3. Fred Krupp/Miriam Horn, authors of Earth, The Sequel
4. Steve Curwood, host of Living On Earth
5. Daryl Hannah, actress and activist
6. Al Gore, hmmm....
7. Ed Begley, host of Living With Ed
8. Bill Nye, arch-nemesis of Ed Begley
9. Orli Cotel, host of Sierra Club Radio
10. Jack Johnson, musician extraordinaire

These people must have many layers of people in between me and them, but it's worth a shot. We've been invited to be interviewed about our travel project on two podcasts coming up, and I haven't even really begun the publicity push yet. Enthusiastic responses and support all around, so why not shoot for the top? Wish us luck...

Be well,
Colin

Some Early Encouragement

Right now we're focusing on getting commitments from the list of people we'd like to interview in our video tour and the responses have been beyond what I expected! I figured that at least some of the people on our list would be tough to get through to - you know, I send an inquiry through their websites that has to go through several layers before reaching the intended party, IF it ever reaches that far. I tried for the hardest first, figuring I'd have to email and call persistently to get noticed. We've gotten quick, enthusiastic responses from everyone we emailed, and people are excited to be included in our video project. The fact that we've gotten so many enthusiastic responses is very encouraging to me, that other people support our project and are willing to take some time from their busy schedules to meet with us. We'll be continuing to focus this week on getting commitments from people on our list.

If you haven't yet seen, heard, or read Al Gore's speech last week challenging America to use 100% renewable energy in 10 years, I highly recommend it. I think it is one of the most important speeches in my lifetime.

When I saw 'An Inconvenient Truth' several years ago, I didn't feel overwhelmingly depressed because I was doing something, albeit small. I was (and still am) driving on alternative fuel, so I knew it was possible to personally walk away from an addiction to oil. Gore's recent speech sent a a clarion call, and with our video project we are answering back loudly! What difference can individuals make? Our videos will give an overview of our nation's renewable energy solutions, and once people see how many resources we have available, they CANNOT insist that a renewable future is impossilbe. We will help show what's possible!

Getting off the ground

This is the first blog post for our cross-country eco-video project!

We'd like to welcome our first sponsor, Greenfeet.com, a green retailer online that was voted by Co-Op America as one of the top 10 green businesses in America. Owner Valerie Reddeman is one of our interviewees in our travel project. Check out www.Greenfeet.com, which sells all kinds of green products for everyday living.

Our video 'Transportation of the Future' was just chosen as one of the top 3 entries in the US PIRG video contest for sustainable transportation! The top 3 videos have been sent to US PIRG's 200,000 members online to vote on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. Voting doesn't wrap up for another month, so we'll let you know the results when they come in. In the meantime, here's our video:

For the next two weeks, we'll be focusing on getting confirmations from our list of interviewees across the country. Hopefully nobody will want to play hard-to-get!

Be well,
Colin