I’m sitting in Wyoming Inn in Jackson,Wyoming about to head into Yellowstone National Park for five days. I’ve packed my long thermal undies and my wool socks — it gets c-o-l-d at 7,000 feet! I’m here on assignment for NBC travel editor Peter’s Greenberg’s site (www.petergreenberg.com), for whom I write a sustainable travel initiatives (see my Virtuous Traveler page on this site).
It’s – so far – a spectacular place. Across from the airport is an elk preserve, where dozens and dozens roamed — except for one unfortunate guy whose carcass was being picked at by three ravens and the most enormous bald eagle I’ve ever seen. A lone coyote – again, they seem to grow them big in these parts – wandered looking for food. And this is before even getting into the park, which boasts a large population of wolves, thanks to a protected status which has let their population thrive once again. Bison, once numbered in the tens of millions, dwindled to about two dozen before their population also bounced back. Today Yellowstone boasts about 3,000 of the hairy giants.
The purpose of this trip is to take a first-hand look at why it’s so important for countries to protect their natural resources. Documentary film-maker Ken Burns (Civil War, History of Baseball, Jazz, etc.) has spent six years filming America’s national parks and will be unveiling clips in a few days, something I’m thrilled to be able to preview.
In the meantime, I’ll do my best to keep warm and keep my camera ready.

The triclo-what? While triclosan is not exactly a household word, “anti-bacterial” is. Marketers have done an incredible job of making us terrified of bacteria – overlooking the fact that our bodies are teeming with it, both the good bacteria and the bad guys. Unfortunately, we’ve become convinced that our first line of defense (our own immune system) simply isn’t up to the task and we wipe our homes and bodies clean of the enemy. How? By using antibacterial everything. Yet many of these antibacterial soaps and gels rely on a chemical called triclosan. According to the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, triclosan is a carcinogen and developmental/reproductive toxin. Researchers at Virginia Tech revealed that triclosan, when exposed to tap water, decomposes into chloroform and chlorine byproducts.
Plain old olive oil or hemp soap and water do the job!
Check out these sites for more info:
http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/ingredient.php?ingred06=706623&nothanks=1
http://www.bodyecology.com/07/09/20/avoid_dangerous_triclosan.php

Well, yes. Worry seems to have become my constant companion. Admittedly, I come from a long line of worriers. My paternal grandmother worried about her daughter, who had Down’s Syndrome – that she would die before Donna and no-one would take care of her; that Donna would die first and she would have to carry on without her.
My father inherited this predilection for worry. If he’s planning a visit, he starts worrying that the weather will be bad. That his car will break down. That he’ll forget his medication.
But I had stopped the cycle, I believed. I was happy-go-lucky. Laissez-faire. I completely trusted this world to provide what I needed, if not what I wanted. I felt safe in the conviction that my life would unfold as it should.
And then? Well…then I became a parent and around the same time, I started reading about climate change. At first, I looked at it as a social justice issue – aware that the world’s poor and oppressed would be the most negatively affected. But the more I read, the more I realized it wasn’t some far-off problem, it was my children’s problem. And t herefore MY problem.
I hung on every word uttered by James Hansen – the renowned and revered climate scientist who studied climate change for NASA since the 80s.
My trust in the universe evaporated. I worried that it’s too late to truly deliver a habitable planet to my children and to-be-born grandchildren. I worried about the people in developing countries who will see the effects of climate change before we privileged people. I worried that it won’t make any difference – that we’re all screwed no matter our geography or our economic status.
These days, however, I’m trying to recapture my faith and my hope. I’ve always talked the talk that all we ever have is today – it’s our gift, our “present”. Now I’m doing my best to live that.
There are days when I succeed. When I get a whiff of promise and am buoyed by my long-lost optimism.
But then there are days – bleak, grey January days – when I wring my hands with guilt, with despair.
It’s those days that I remind myself of the words of Paul Hawken, brilliant environmentalist and proponent of the green wave of the future who says, “What a great time to be alive…because this generation gets to completely reimagine the world.”
Hopeful thinking…but please. Hurry.