Sustainablog

Tucked in forest, perched alongside coastal sand dunes and a brief stroll from the California surf in Pacific Grove on the Monterey Peninsula rests the Asilomar Conference Grounds.  It’s owned by the people of California as a California State Park, but the conference facilities and lodging is managed by Delaware North Companies Parks and Resorts, the same company that manages other accommodations in some spectacular environs including the Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks.

You don’t need to be a conference-goer to experience the grounds or even bed down in the rustic, immaculately clean, and camp-like accommodations.  Besides being a conference hot spot, ecotravelers can stay as leisure guests.  Many also come to Asilomar to celebrate their wedding, share a family reunion or host a corporate retreat — especially if they’re trying to do it more green.

Upon arriving with my family, two Black-tailed deer greeted us just before we passed between Asilomar’s welcoming stone columns at the entrance.  The hub of Asilomar Conference Grounds — which includes 313 secluded guest rooms housed in a unique collection of historic cabins and lodges, many with fireplaces, balconies or private decks — is their Social Hall, with outdoor seating, wireless access, board games and ping pong.  During our stay, a complimentary Jazz ensemble in the Social Hall provided a relaxing way to wind down the day.  The spacious guest rooms are designed for the tranquil enjoyment of nature, so TVs, radios and telephones are refreshingly absent.

Rightly deserving its “refuge by the sea” namesake, the 107-acre Asilomar Conference Grounds both inspires our appreciation of nature and is inspired by it. The grounds got its start in 1928 as a Young Women’s Christian Association (YMCA) camp, created, built and funded by women.  California’s first registered female architect, Julia Morgan, designed the buildings on the grounds in the Arts and Craft style which embraced harmony, community and natural beauty.  Every building has a face to the ocean.  I found every door opened to the outdoors (try that at your typical convention center).

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St. Louis-based Enterprise Rent-a-Car announced last week they will add nearly 5000 gas/electric hybrid cars to it nationwide rental fleet and designate 80 locations as “hybrid branches” - centers with a high concentration of hybrid vehicles available. These branches will be located in 24 major markets across the country including 10 of the nation’s busiest airports.

This latest addition doubles the number of hybrid vehicles available in what is already the nation’s largest fleet of fuel efficient rental cars. Along with its sister companies Alamo and National, Enterprise fields nearly 450,000 cars in their combined fleet that achieve 28 mpg or better, 230,000 cars get 32 mpg or better, and 425,000 cars have earned the Environmental Protection Agency’s SmartWay certification.

For $1.25 per rental, customers can opt to offset their vehicle emissions for a charge of $1.25 per rental. The fee helps fund certified offset projects with TerraPass. Through their charitable fund, Enterprise will match customer donations dollar-for-dollar up to $1 million annually.

Enterprise also actively supports alternative fuel research through the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Institute for Renewable Fuels at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center (I had the opportunity last October to chat with Dr. Richard Sayre, the Institute’s newly-named director ). An overview of this and other environmental sustainability programs in which Enterprise is involved is explained on their website KeystoGreen.com.

So does all this make Enterprise green - or is it just greenwash?

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You can’t help but “see green” when you look at Shrek, but that’s green in a friendly ogre green coloring sort of way.

However, scratch the surface at Universal Studios theme park in California and you’ll see there’s a refreshing priority toward going green that both enhances the traveler’s experience and makes a statement on what a company the mega-size of NBC Universal can do in the green direction.

When we see the big Hollywood players like Universal Studios going green, it is easy to quickly write them off as playing in the big cash flow leagues that come with the size of mega corporations like NBC Universal. Because of the size and resources involved, it is easy to write-off any efforts Universal Studios is doing as way beyond the scope of Joe and Jane, average ecopreneurs with more dedication than dollars.

Sure, Universal Studios sells in green with Hollywood style and pizazz, but scratch the surface on some of their efforts and you’ll see there are simple, tangible tactics any business can model at their own level and needs. Here are three tips from their “green is universal” program to draw inspiration from, no Access Hollywood required:

1. Add Signage
Granted, people flock to Universal Studios theme parks for entertainment other than eco-tips. Read the rest of this entry »

A day at the zoo brings back classic kiddie flashbacks for just about everyone. Who doesn’t remember an afternoon of lions, tigers and bears? But – oh my – as our eco savvy radar grows savvier over the years, the zoo experience can be a bit of a conundrum: How can we justify the variety of issues zoos bring to the plate – from cages to carbon footprints – for today’s world?

One approach: Select your zoo destination carefully and make a conscious effort to make your experience as green and educational as possible. One suggestion:

Head for the San Diego Zoo. Sure, the San Diego Zoo has been heralded as a zoological leader for decades and remains a southern California pillar of tourism. But there are reasons for that as the San Diego Zoo keeps redefining and reinventing the zoo experience. With a dash of educational effort, your family zoo outing can evolve to an inspiring environmental educational experience.

At their core level, the San Diego Zoo – like other zoos – bring a global array of animals directly in front of one’s eyes. Kids naturally form a magical connection with animals – the challenge is how to further this fascination into a lifelong habit of stewarding the planet and taking the conservation message to heart. The San Diego Zoo offers various approaches to do just that, as my family and I experienced during a recent trip to sunny southern California, escaping the Wisconsin winter back on our farm.

Here’s four tips from our San Diego Zoo outing on greening your zoo experience with kids:

1. Prep Beforehand
A dash of preparation beforehand can significantly enhance the zoo experience. Read the rest of this entry »

“I started to see two Americas: the mythic America and the real America. There was a harsh reality to America as well as the dream. I wanted to describe this era of prosperity and Savings and Loans scandals as a spiritual drought. I started thinking about the desert.” - Bono, from the rock band, U2

There’s “a place, high on a desert plain, where the streets have no name,” a place marked by bizarre rock outcroppings and the almost magical forests of the crooked and spiky Joshua trees — a metaphor U2 adeptly used for America’s prosperity and greed of the 80s, as relevant then, as it is today. In December of 1986, the four members of U2 and photographer Anton Corbijn captured the rocky and mountainous terrain and a lonely Joshua tree, summoning us with their The Joshua Tree to call upon our inner spirit to come together for peace, harmony, and love.

Here we are today, more than twenty years later, where such a commitment for change is never more needed. Perhaps a little time in the desert might clear my mind, settle my soul, I thought. Perhaps I can muster the strength we need to move toward a more sustainable and just tomorrow. Located 140 miles east of Los Angeles and just north of Palm Springs and west of Death Valley, the 792,726-acre Joshua Tree National Park provides an escape from urban pressures, a place to experience solitude and wilderness, to reconnect with our hopes and dreams.

The photogenic Joshua trees are neither tree nor cactus; they’re a giant version of a species of yucca, belonging to the lily family, many living for hundreds of years.  Unfortunately, if the U.S. Geological Survey scientists are correct in their modeling, the Joshua trees may not be around in fifty to a hundred years from now thanks to climate change altering the fragile desert ecosystem, average temperatures, and precipitation patterns. The trees they need cool winters and freezing temperatures in order to produce flowers, release their seeds, and reproduce.

To experience the park, my family and I meandered but a few of the 191 miles of hiking trails for our own spiritual walkabout roughly the same time as President-elect Barack Obama was sworn into office. The desert foray was a dramatic ecotourism adventure — a safe one, so long as you bring lots of water with you.  There are also four visitor centers positioned to help guide your enjoyment of the park, depending on where you enter it. Many argue that the best time to visit is during the spring bloom of wildflowers and other plants.

My bet is that U2 never anticipated the global impacts of climate change, now calling into question the long term survival of the namesake Joshua Trees in the Joshua Tree National Park. That Joshua tree made famous by U2 is gone. Others will likely follow.  Besides climate change, invasive exotic species, increasing incidence of wildfires, and nitrogen deposition originating from emissions hundreds of miles away in Los Angeles are also impacting the trees, according to Alice Miller who is involved with on-going research in the park.  “There is no single cause of their decline,” says Miller.  “Everything is interconnected.”

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Over 2,500 miles west of Washington D.C. this week in sunny Carlsbad, California, the new Obama presidency commemorates a different type of inauguration, compliments of Legoland. The Master Model Designers behind Miniland U.S.A. – the section of this theme park that depicts Lego versions of various American landmarks – dressed up the model of the steps of the U.S. Capitol for our historic 56th Presidential inauguration.

Mini versions of everyone from the Obama family to Oprah Winfrey and the San Francisco Boys Chorus can be spotted in this creative Lego masterpiece.

As my family and I continued our California journey this week, escaping winter on our Wisconsin farm, spotting the mini-figure, four-inch version of Obama first brought a smile. Creative and colorful, you’re immediately drawn into analyzing the realistic detail of this endeavor.

But scratch the plastic surface. For me, this Lego depiction took on deeper meaning, a metaphor to inspiring the challenging days ahead. Harkening to Obama’s inspiring speech yesterday, if the new President and his administration truly seek change, particularly positive help for our planet, there are lessons to be learned from this Lego display:

1. Twist the Expected
Sure you expect to see Legos at Legoland. That’s the lure that kept our seven-year old son salivating up to the park gate. But Obama taking the presidential oath of office, constructed out of Legos? Read the rest of this entry »

Plotting a mid-winter travel escape? While discussion on “green travel” tends to focus on the “where” you’re going – like the exotic Costa Rica ecotourism tour – remember you can add a sustainable twist to any trip anywhere with a dash of pre-planning. Focus on the process – the what you’re doing and how you’re doing it – wherever you go and green up any destination.

Here are three things that always land in my family’s suitcase. Lightweight and small, these items are easy to pack and offer multiple uses throughout the trip:

1. Something to Chase
Pack one small piece of sports gear that gets you moving, such as a Frisbee, foam football or hacky sack. Read the rest of this entry »

While there are some who say we will (or should) travel less in the coming years — and perhaps some of us will — let’s not forget that the travel industry is the second largest industry on this planet after the industrial-military complex. It’s vitally important to many communities, businesses and organizations, ours included. We operate Inn Serendipity Bed & Breakfast, completely powered by the wind and sun.

My first post on ecotourism presented an approach to travel that sustains, enhances or restores diverse ecological systems, preserves the economic and social well-being of the local and global community, and fosters a greater understanding on the part of the traveler of nature, culture or the community visited. It’s the “triple bottom line of profits, planet and people” I write about in ECOpreneuring, applied to the travel industry.

This type of travel usually provides the ecotravelers with authentic experiences (read: not merely heads on beds) and the travelers themselves participate in the renewal, restoration or revitalization process underway by the community, business or organization. Ecotourism is a departure from the consumption and luxury focus of the mainstream tourism industry that touts all-inclusive resorts and 4-star amenities with little or no thought given to paying livable wages to employees or producing some of their own energy on site.

Since piloting a green travel program in 2007, the State of Wisconsin’s Department of Tourism, through their Travel Green Wisconsin program, has provided a framework by which already green tourism related businesses can be more easily found while those enterprises that recognize that there’s more green in going green can follow detailed certification requirements to embark on their journey to evolve, as all organizations will need to do sooner, or later, as a restorative enterprise that follows not just the laws of supply and demand, but also the laws of nature.

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After a twisting journey up mountain roads or through vineyards, about two hours north of San Francisco Bay area or northwest of Sacramento, and tucked up the side of a mountain, flows the hot springs of what is now Harbin Hot Springs.

The 112-degree Fahrenheit hot springs, one of six distinctive pools of varying temperatures, are the centerpiece of Harbin Hot Springs, a center to experience nature’s beauty while exploring our potential as human beings. A Mecca for healers, sun-worshippers, intentional community seekers, yoga practitioners, over-wired Silicon Valley wizards in need of a break, and droves of people who seek a therapeutic and restorative soak in the springs, embraced by nature.

Historically, the springs have drawn Native American shamans and LSD-tripping hippies. In the 1880s, invalids journeyed to the Harbin Hot Springs Health and Pleasure Resort by stagecoach. Today, Harbin Hot Springs is a thriving intentional community of 175 year-round residents and a growing crowd of over 100,000 visitors each year who come for a soak in the waters, a massage, some bodywork and healing, educational workshops, hikes on some of the 1,160 acres of hiking trails that meander the 1,700-acre property, or some lounging au naturale on the sun decks after cooling off in the pristine, spring fed pool. This is a place to embrace nature, reconnect with your inner self, and enjoy the convivial community.

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My family and I awoke, greeted by a spectacular show of autumn colors while our Capitol Limited Amtrak train coasted alongside a meandering river somewhere outside Martinsburg, West Virginia. We headed to the glass enclosed lounge car to join a convivial community of train travelers, snapping photos of quaint mountain towns and even a wind farm perched atop a ridge.

Our destination was Washington D.C. and after careful consideration, we concluded that getting to the nation’s capitol by train was both the most energy efficient way (when compared to flying or driving) and a most enjoyable one. We stretched out on comfortable and spacious seats, had plenty of room to stretch our legs in the lounge or cafe car, avoided the hassles of airline check-in and security, and had ample free time to play games with our son, read a book, watch the world passing by out the windows, even sip a cup of Fair Trade Certified Green Mountain Coffee purchased at their cafe.

Hardly our first train trip on Amtrak (and no stranger to the European intercity rail system), we, as ecotravelers, found riding with Amtrak far more than an ecologically sound and more fuel efficient way to travel. We joined a community of fellow travelers eager to slow down more to enjoy the scenery, rather than flying thousands of feet overhead or speeding down boring Interstate Highways in a car.

Americans are riding the rails in a big way these days. From October 2006 to September 2007, about 25.8 million Americans took a trip on Amtrak. An average of more than 70,000 passengers ride on up to 300 Amtrak trains per day. Amtrak, officially called the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, was created by the Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970. After a 150 years of passenger rail service by private freight companies largely disappeared due to the rapid growth (and, in hindsight, disasterous ecological and social impacts) of automobile and airline travel, the U.S. government stepped in to set up a public service passenger rail service so that intercity passenger train travel could still be continued. Fortunately for us.

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