Hi and welcome to FDL Movie Night where we have the three roving genii of YERT, Mark Dixon, Julie Dingman Evans and Ben Evans, who visited Dugout Dick and his neighbors while on a year-long eco-expedition through all 50 United States, Your Environmental Road Trip–hence YERT.

Quick reminder: hit refresh every minute or so to update your browser and see new comments. Ou can reply to a comment by hitting the reply button in that comment. Don’t forget to hit “send comment” like I sometimes do. And please forgive my tpying, it’s worse than normal today.

That being said, let’s starts with YERT’s big news, and also have you explain a bit about YERT, its/your philosophy, and some of the cool stuff that happened during your YERTing. And then I wanna ask a whole bunch of questions about the caves…

Hi there, Lisa! Thanks for having us on tonight. We’re excited to be here to share some stories with you and the readers. I’ll let ben get to the news!

:)

yeah, the big news – we just sent off a rough cut of our feature-length documentary to Sundance this past week! we’ll see what they say in a couple months… Very exciting – AND very exhausting.

wWow! That’s sooo awesome Please keep up posted! Why dont you tell us a little about YERT’s background, mission, etc…? And didn;t you have an unexpected addition to the YERT team on the road…?

Suggested theme song. Bat Scratch Fever!

Welcome Mark.

Philosophically… for me this trip was about exploring whether it was possible to live well– to thrive- in spite of an uncertain ecological future. And it also seemed to me that it would be possible to find people who were living out that vision all around the country– we just needed to take the time to look and find it. That said, we weren’t CERTAIN that we could find it, so we had to explore. And that’s just what we did. All 50 states in 52 weeks!

julie here, typing with one hand, babe in the other.
thanks so much for having us!

Background– I was working for a start-up in silicon valley for a few years before I decided that issues of ecological sustainability were too important to ignore. In fact, it seemed that they were too important to not redirect my whole life towards improving the relationship between people and the planet. But I didn’t know exactly how to do it, so I thought it would be handy to educate myself by meeting people all around the country. And if we’re learning, why not share the learning with videos? And if we’re making videos, why not make them fun?

i meant to say that i had the unexpected 4th member of YERT in my other arm…

Julie and I were professional actors in NYC – we’d both been deeply concerned about environmental issues for a number of years. YERT was an opportunity to direct our creative energies to something that we felt was truly important. Mark and I met in a college a capella group (though we never actually sang during the same years).

Right, the baby. Yeah, Julie got pregnant about 3 months into the trip which made the adventure extra exciting. We had actually be told we couldn’t have children, so it was a huge surprise to all of us.

Hi, Eureka! Thanks for the tip. I haven’t heard that song. Got a link for where we can find it?

Wow! how wonderous!

Hi, Eureka! Thanks for the tip. I haven’t heard that song. Got a link for where we can find it? I thought I’d re-post this as a reply…

I read that you tried to make your travel as low impact as possible…could you tell us abou tthat?

Our mission was, in a phrase: “to personalize sustainability” We also liked to say that we were exploring American environmentalism – the good, the bad, and the weird. We really wanted to put ourselves through some challenges and also put some faces on the unique things Americans were doing to be more sustainable.

D.O.Dick looks like he coulda been in one of the episodes from Ken Burns’ new special documentary. Why, yes, I was watching yesterday.

I thought that something fishy was going on when I saw Julie reading a web article entitled “eating for two.” It wasn’t long before she admitted being pregnant. Then things got interesting.

we had a number of challenges on the trip – our biggest was the “no garbage challenge” – basically keeping all of our trash (and recyclables) with us in the car for the entire year. which meant generating no more than one shoebox of garbage between all 3 of us per month.

I have friends who live entirely off the grid.. in comfort and style. We both moved into our new homes about the same time a few years ago… The first winter I paid utility bills while they vacationed in Peru.

Demi, I totally agree. Looks like a 92-yr-old John Muir. That doc had me crying last night.

Coping wiht a pregnancy on the road must have been challenging for everyone–hormones, pre natal care, pit stops/bio-breaks…

we knew that we were using a lot of gas.
we thought: let’s try to make no trash.

So have you installed solar panels yet, Eureka? Peru is calling… ;)

pregnancy WAS a challenge for all of us for very different reasons. For me, the biggest challenge was my new super spidey sense of smell and sharing the car with 2 boys.

How did you make as little trash as possible–no fast food obviously! Showers? Bio-breaks?

2 boys’ feet.

It is amazing how comfortable and simple and peaceful things get when you get yourself off the grid. There’s a whole new level of quiet and a whole new level of independence from the constraints and “normal” costs we have grown used to paying to be a part of society. I speak like I have experience– but most of my off-grid experience was in that cave next to Dugout’s cave. ;-)

LOL.. We have a youngster in da house! I made it up… change one letter.

Umm….yeah. That would have been …..insightful. What did you all eat? Local foods from stands? fruits? Vegetables?

and we tried to use as little gas as possible – driving through every state in the country. no doubt, Environmental Road Trip is a bit of an oxymoron – so we figured we’d try to do more good than harm if we could. we also used far less water (about a 75% reduction) for 2/3 of the trip and never turned on an incandescent light – which made for a lot of working in the dark. ;)

we took a test trip before we left forreal and learned that we would really have to prepare. Thus we always had with us canteens, utensils, hankies and bandannas, and when we ate out had to head the toothpicks, straws and paper doilies off at the pass…

You pod cast the trip, so you had Mi-fi? How did you plan your trip? Part planned, part wimsey and happenstance?

Working on it. Some friends are installing a solar powered well this month. Free clean water for life.

Lisa, we could only do the locavore challenge for a couple weeks – it was just too hard on the road with no fridge in the car and crazy trash rules. but we certainly hit farmers’ markets where and when we could. we went a little more hard core in WI and MN.

and we found that the people who worked at food establishments nearly always cooperated AND were interested in what we were doing.

Hey, Lisa!

There were plenty of tricks that we thought up and stumbled across for how to make less garbage. We made a point to buy bulk foods at co-ops and Whole Foods stores around the country. We had lots of storage containers and then would weigh them up-front, then fill them, and subtract the tare weight at checkout. That worked well most of the time. We also had to tell our restaurant servers up-front that we wanted to make no garbage– most were thrilled to help, though rarely did they succeed in bringing us NO garbage. Often times a toothpick or plastic cup snuck onto the plate.

We started a group on facebook to try to get folks involved in making less than “one shoebox” of garbage per month. You can check it out here: http://www.facebook.com/home.p…..038;ref=ts

A few of the tips from the site include:

Join YERT in their first and most comprehensive challenge: During one month, produce no more garbage than what you can fit into ONE SHOEBOX. Can you handle it??

Key Rules:
- Find a used shoebox. Just ONE shoebox.
- Put garbage into that shoebox as you create it
- Recyclable items go in the shoebox
- Compostables go into a separate compost bin
- Toilet paper goes in the toilet
- Extra food and beverages (including water) at mealtime should be stored and eaten later. Compost it ONLY if it goes bad.

How?
- Try the bulk bins! Buy foods and other consumables that have no wrapping.
- Cook foods from scratch! Fruits and veggies often have no wrapping.
- Get a few re-usable bags and keep them handy.
- Get a few cloth handkerchiefs and keep them handy.
- At restaurants, ask your server to pre-emptively remove paper, toothpicks, and other potential garbage from your plate, and bring tupperware to store leftover food.
- Overall, try to generate ZERO garbage and use the shoebox ONLY if you make a mistake.

In general, use this as an opportunity to get creative, meet new folks, and spark up conversations about your crazy challenge. Then get them to try. Then sign up for a second month.

Yes, lots of fruits and vegetables. Whatever came with no wrapping, we’d eat it. I found that I liked eating cucumbers raw and unprepared as my “salad.” I also ate apples including the cores– then I would put the seeds in the compost bin.

did you sleep outdoors/camp a lot or stay in hotels or…?

that sounds wonderful.

Lisa, you may also want to watch our 3 month check-in video here.

The vents in the car would actually pull the air up from our smelly feet and into the back where Julie was most of the time.

i think we all thought that we would be camping at least SOME of the time…logistics of traveling with so much equipment…

Ben – especially enjoyed the Yosemite sections, ’cause we camp there. I’ve camped until late in to my (3) pregnancies. No biggie. As long as you’re not the kind of girl who is saying Honey, bring me some cheese puffs, it’s not that big a deal. Okay, lots’ of potty breaks. Well, that was just my experience. Other’s could have been different.

we stayed with a lot of friends, family, and strangers. we couldn’t camp very much because we needed to charge a ton of batteries (camera, computer, etc.) every night as we were editing and posting HD video from the road. would have been nice to camp more, though.

So how did you learn about Dugout Dick?

right. i wasn’t allowed to drive anymore bc pregnant ladies and airbags don’t mix well.

Ben was our mapper-in-chief. During the early days, I did lots of planning during meditation sessions, just letting the details sort out in my head during quiet hours pondering what it would all be out about what needed to be done first. Then as we got closer to launch (July 4, 2007), things started to get a little more frenzied and it was more challenging to just meditate through it all. ;-)

i love maps and planning trips (a little obsessed with it, actually), so i ended up taking on a lot of that. we planned the trip to stay out of the snow as much as possible (seasonally) and tried to plan a toe-hold or two per state. lots of times that was all we needed – people we talked to in each state would always point us towards more and more interesting folks. as a matter of fact, the way in which we found Dugout was kind of a cool stroke of luck – we met a guy in a restaurant in Providence, RI named Joe who was a green builder and took us on a wild bike chase all over Providence showing us his green renovations. as we were interviewing him, he asked us if we were going to Idaho. we said “yes” and he said we needed to talk to Dugout Dick when we went. Told us he was a 92 year-old miner living in a cave. we said “awesome” and he told us we could stay in his cave when we went – which, he pointed out, “was 2 caves down from Dick’s.” :)

That’s just one example of the cool coincidences that led us for much of the trip.

We had a tent the whole time, hoping to do some camping, but we found that everything needed charging all the time– we tried to use all rechargeable batters to be more environmentally friendly, but that meant that batteries were dying all the time and needed to be charged at night. It would have been tough to camp someplace with all of our equipment lying around the electric socket near or on the dirt. Dirt and electronics don’t mix well. We finally did use the tent on the boat-ride home from Alaska to Washington State. It saved us several hundred dollars because we could pitch the tent on the boat on the way home instead of renting a room.

Was this made by the wingnuts with the express purpose of allowing the lefties to be mocked?

So how did you get to Alaska and Hawaii? (side note when driving with ex-husband we use dot play the license plate game, looking for all the states. And there in Tucson we saw a car with Hawaiian plates–the holy grail!)

It really is surprising how much you can reduce your garbage when you start thinking about how you use products, and recycle as much as you can. It becomes a challenge and game for me to find ways to keep reducing.

sorry?

not sure what you mean? the caves? they’re actually pretty happy in the caves – and so far away from most of civilization, that I’m not sure they’re concerned about being mocked

we took the bridge to Hawaii ;)

yes, “making no trash” got MUCH more difficult when we got back home and had the baby, and were living with others…

OT
Neiwert’s on Countdown.

we did NOT. that’s what we bought that Hybrid for.

It’s so bizarre and extreme, how can it not be a mockery?

It really is true– it is amazing how much you can reduce your garbage just by thinking about a tiny bit. The hardest part was finding an excuse to not to the “normal” thing expected of you by normal people in everyday life. But if you don’t sweat the excuse, or say “I’m on a 50 state environmental road trip” then they don’t look at you quite as strangely. ;-) In fact, 99% of the time people LOVED our garbage challenges and wanted to help! It seemed that they were just waiting for somebody else to be a little bit weird so that they could change their ways in our wake and not be perceived to be quite as weird.

wow – Hawaii plates in Tuscon, how many points is THAT worth?!?

we actually did drive to Alaska (well, Mark did – Julie and I were busy getting ready for a new arrival ;)).

I am really in awe of all you did…I try to buy stuff wiht as little packaign as possible, or at recycleable packagin and I toss my coffee grounds on the plants

i just don’t think there’s anything funny about it.

well, our intent was certainly not to mock them – although it’s a pretty extreme way to live. but in some ways, they’re wiser than a lot of the rest of us.

I dont think everyone living in the caves is a leftie, by any stretch. Some seem pretty libertarian.

Oh, well if they’re not concerned about being mocked, as a leftie, I sure am. I have no desire to be associated with extremists of any sort. And associating with this site certainly links these exteremists to me, as I hang out here frequently.

yes with a baby i can imagine offers a whole new set of circumstances. what you do learn and share however will be a great lesson for the future.

Well, libertarians ain’t ‘xactly solid citizens, much as they bill themselves to be. Talk about wanting to tear apart the fabric of society. Sure you wanna be associated with them?

So, is Dugout still in the caves, he had was hospitalized awhile back…

I also got the sense that Dugout Dick really enjoyed living in a cave because people would visit him by the busload to explore his little world! Far from enjoying a “hermit’s life,” it was his unique (and quite successful) way of interacting with the world. People would visit him from around the world.

I’m not sure I follow your logic. Our trip was about exploring sustainability – the good, the bad, and the weird. The cave community fell somewhere between weird and good (leaning toward weird). We sought out extreme approaches to environmentalism sometimes get a full range of experiences and broader perspective. I’d be curious to know if you consider the native americans extremists. In many ways, they are kind of modern-day Anasazi. Taking advantage of natural climate control/shelter of caves, natural building materials, creative materials reuse, etc. Dugout was quite the organic gardener back in the day, actually.

I think it astounding that peopel can live for $300 a year–gives a lot of freedom for those who aren’t comfy in urban environments. So do certian people go into town for everyone? does everyon have transportation?

Not sure if he is back in the caves or not. Haven’t heard much about him in a little while.

What extremists are you seeing here eCAHN?

Unfortunately I have not had an opportunity to watch the documentary but have known folks similar to those apparently depicted. Eccentric, yes but not extremist

In my opinion, most people in this country live in a state of EXTREME denial about how much energy they use, how much garbage they make, how far they would have to go to actually live sustainably – and mostly I feel that this is ignorance – it is one of the things i love about the Dugout Dick piece – i think there are alot of people who don’t even believe that living like that is POSSIBLE, but it IS. And it is one of the reasons that i felt like going on this trip was important – putting as many different kinds of examples out there as we could is a way of offering some other Americans’ solutions…

I would wager that Hawaii tags was someone that was in the Air Force or Army and had recently been transferred from one of the Hawaii installation to whatever military installation is near Tucson

Living in caves is NOT extreme?

Dugout had a truck, and Bruce has a motorcycle. They seemed to head into town as necessary. There is definitely a community spirit there– Bruce brought the wood for the caves, for instance. The interesting thing about the community spirit at the caves is that Dugout Dick has the mineral rights to the property, so when he dies, the property owner changes to the state/USA. That means that everybody who lives in the caves wants to be sure that Dugout stays alive– otherwise they will likely be evicted!

Not denying that. Only saying that promoting cave dwelling is hardy a way to convince people of the error of their ways.

indeed. eCAHN, I would also point out that this is one of over 50 short videos on our website (www.yert.com). I would encourage you to look at some of the others, as many are less “extreme.” this is one of the more unusual videos in terms of subject matter – for what that’s worth.

One day I had gotten back from clothes shopping and I had a bunch of hang tags, price tags and cardboard from the collars in shirts. As I took everything apart to sort and store, I looked over and saw a pile of stuff that could be recycled and not trashed.

Until that point I never considered the smaller things like hang tags etc. It was a moment of clarity that changed my thinking not only about how I buy things but how I recycle also. When I look to make a purchase now I think of what I’m going to do with the residual things left over. It influences my buying.

not convincin people of anything. offering possibilities :)

Well, perhaps you should have introduced us to your efforts with something less extreme. Don’t expect me to root out your true message.

One of the cave guys, Bruce loves the outdoors and camping. He works in a lumber yard in town and has a great time living well.

There are peopel who live all sorts of ways, and these folks are pretty much indicative of our pioneer spirit–remeber in Little House on the Prairie (the book) the Ingall lives in a dugout for a year until Pa built the house…

Living in a cave is a possiblity???!!! Allow me to differ.

Again, our mission was not to convince people of the error of their ways, but to entertain, explore, and educate – in this case, i would hope that people would be intrigued enough by the idea of “modern day cave dwellers” to watch and perhaps come away for a new appreciation for living more simply and of the benefits of taking advantage of deep earth temperature and solar gain when designing their homes. we’re certainly not advocating that everyone move into caves.

Yeah, Millineryman, when you look at things differently it is easy to change your ways. The easiest way for us to avoid that stuff was to shop only at thrift stores and ask for hand-me-downs from people we met along the way. It worked out quite nicely! We might have been a bit “forward,” but again, people seemed to rally to help us with our “no garbage” challenge.

ECAHN, I actually chose that piece out of the many available on their site. It thought it was charming and sweet and showed a unique slice of AMericana.

again, feel free to browse the website, you’ll find lots of other stuff more your flavor, i’m sure.

Maybe it’s extreme to folks in the city but folks like this are hidden away in rural areas all over the country. Most wouldn’t claim to be leftie or rightie or libertarian or anything. They just live quietly in caves, or shacks or in places carved out of the ground. They are basically living the way folks did 200 years ago and are quite happy.

I love the outdoors and have done much camping in my life. I wouldn’t live in a cave for all the geld in the world. It is truely at the outer reaches of civilization, and I don’t think you’d have evidence to deny that.

it is a possibility – they’re doing it.

ooh i LOVE that! it’s thrilling to have SO MUCH more recycling than garbage every week.

The idea of modern day cave dwellers is so offputting to me that I can’t get beyond the intro. And I’m on your side.

That’s great that you gave people an opportunity to help, which I believe a lot people are willing to do, and you offered them a new way to look at things. It’s a very positive approach to challenging ingrained behaviour.

So, and…it’s not your taste, but it makes the peopel who choose no more weird than those who prefer say furnishng their hoes in only mid-century modern and lsitenng to Les baxter, or Goth lifestyles or anything else..people are individuals, and if they want to live off the grid, more power to them

Oh fine. There are kooks of every political stripe and I prefer to be associated with none of them.

Dakine01, you hit the nail on the head– they ARE quite happy. Dugout didn’t HAVE to live like that. He chose to do it. Bruce is CHOOSING to live like that. It’s quite clear that he’s living differently, but he really likes the way he lives. Spend a couple minutes overseas and you’ll find people living in all sorts of “strange” places that many Americans would find horrible. But they seem to be doing just fine.

i have to say, i am appreciating the lively discussion ;). certainly not asking anyone to live in a cave, but we would actually be far better off as a society from an environmental perspective if people creatively reused things, took advantage of passive solar design, lived in smaller houses (less energy on AC/heating), etc. All things they happen to be doing in the caves.

So, Dick’s cats, thank you guys for arranging to get them fixed…

How far from town are the caves?

I have no problems with individuals living as they wish. My problem is promoting such life styles as indicative of what the left might support, which is what this post seems to point to.

Why do you think that publicizing living in caves will do anything other than promoting mockery for anything leftie?

I think you may be letting political presuppositions get in the way of your enjoyment of the video. I’m not sure they were on any particular end of the political spectrum. Again, the cave-dwelling native americans of 200 years ago would look at all of us as extremists. Extremely myopic technological fundamentalists. And they’d have a point.

Again, not a lefty – righty video in any way. I think you’re missing the point.

The caves are a short 10 minutes from “town,” but the town isn’t exactly the kind of bustling center that we might think it is. We stuck out like sore thumbs at the local bar.

Sustainability is not a left/right issue. YOu’ll find many fundamnetalist churches realizing “stewards of the arth” means to stop polutitng and be greener. And my fave GOP candidate, the Pagan guy in Queens, speaks out abut being grener and voluteering…

I agree – they’re are closed and opened minds on both sides of the political spectrum.

The political connection is appearing on FDL, a completely political site. I may be missing the point because I’m a regular here, and view everything that appears on this site as representative of the community accepted political site consensus. If I’m wrong, and this video is an exception, Lisa, as host, please correct me.

sorry, “there” are – not “they’re” are. ;)

The Dugout Dick video received lots of hits when it was posted to SurvivalBlog a few months back. That site wasn’t really right or lefty, but over 1000 people watched it. There are countless people out there in “survivalist” mode and I don’t think that their existence is a political stand in one direction or another. I think that Lisa’s libertarian idea is pretty accurate.

How large was the town? (Note: I grew up in small towns and can easily verify the “Hey, look at the strangers” attitude you could have seen)

The town was pretty small. I vaguely remember a bar, a pay phone, maybe a store there. Probably a church or two. It really was just barely a town.

What? huh? representative of the site consensus? Gosh…I try to present videos and movies that will spur discussion, whihc this certainly has. I am sorry if you dont feel it fits your pre-detrmined assessment of what is politically correct, but I love America and I love the characters who make it a unique place.

So the purpose of this front page is just to educate up on what is going on “out there?” I could live with that, but not with the idea that lefties support cave dwelling.

I’ll look for a clip but doubt that I’ll find it, about how Norquist makes a mockery of leftie environmentalism. We don’t need to hand him even more ammunition.

Isn’t looking at ways that people around the country deal with their lives in an environmentally friendly way a progressive act?

It looks like the folks are re-using already manufactured things (re-cycling). If they have electricity, they still wouldn’t use that many resources just by using the earth as insulation. They’ve just chosen a cave rather than digging out a side of a hill (which is also not totally unheard of).

Sounds about like a population then around 100 people.

Ben, Mark, Julie–as you traveled the country, what was the general vibe? Towards the future?

Fair enough. But you have to realize that the front page appearance here contains a stamp of approval from FDL central. If that’s not the case, probably FDL regulars have been fooled all along.

You could spoil a perfectly good strawberry short cake with vanilla ice cream.
Hush up and let the grown up’s talk.

Oh pshaw. Frontpaging something so extreme invites mockery.

I’m not sure how you can say that the video is about “wingnuts” and then worry about Norquist mocking leftie environmentalism. if anything, a video about libertarian cave dwellers (if that’s what they were) might actually bring more people (like, say, libertarians) into the environmental choir. they might actually be able to relate on a number of levels. would more people in the environmental choir be a bad thing?

We asked loads of people a question as we traveled around, “Are we doomed?” And the general consensus from hundreds of people was that we were not doomed, but that our consumptive lifestyle was probably doomed, and that we needed to make some significant changes quickly.

I think Lisa (and Jane and others) have set up the Movie Night on the same lines as the Book Salons. Items of interest to the community without necessarily offering a full blown endorsement of everything included.

Again, I’m sorry if tonight’s offering produced some acid reflux for you. Our documentary on People’s Temple must have been equally as upsetting given the liberal politicians who were takne in by Jim Jones.

Mark, Ben Julie-when will you have the news about Sundance? And what your your future plans?

with all due respect, i think you may want to expand your ideas of what constitutes “environmentalists” and “extreme.” And again, part of the point of the project was to get people’s attention about issues (like creative materials reuse and passive solar design) by highlighting unusual and extreme examples.

So here’s a post, not the one I was hoping to find, of the Norquist mockest of the lefties.

There is a development being planned in Malibu-5 homes, super high end green sustainable design, native plants etc. By showing that it cna work on THAT scale, there’s a trickle down to other levels of home building and remodeling, and I think YERT has shown us a “trickle up”

Damn! you really feel threatened by these people for some reason.

Well, perhaps some thought about how FDL could be characterized as a cave dwelling communitiy, might be thougt of in advance.

But isn’t that pretty much what you are doing? You seem to be mocking these people because they have chosen to live a life in a cave in (presumably) a mountanous area of Idaho rather than in the canyons of NYC.

You might not see any way to do what they are doing but there probably are readers at fdl that can actually envision living like this.

Back to nature does not necessarily mean Walden Pond.

news about Sundance in early December. and you can view our feature film trailer here:

We’ll then be submitting to several other festivals including SXSW and Tribeca. And we plan to continue giving live presentation about the project – with a possible book at some point. A TV show would also be a natural fit as the project was inherently episodic.

Not denying that. Only saying that promoting cave dwelling is hardy a way to convince people of the error of their ways.

Not sure I want to delve into this debate (and I should admit that I was away for a while and caught myself up quickly), but I have to agree with eCANHonics’ response to Julie Dingman Evans @ 77.

What Julie describes has been a fact for 5000 years – human beings use resources and change/damage the environment and pollute. Groups have been calling on people to change their ways for a long time, too, especially during the last 200 years. Over 2000 years ago, Daoists taught the Chinese to reject centers of complex society. More recently, over a hundred years ago, some who became disillusioned with Marxism essentially threw up their hands and tried to dramatically change society into something more simple. Throughout the last 5 millennia, there literally have been thousands of groups from different cultures who have yearned for freedom from the shit of civilization.

Bottom line is that all we can do is try to improve our ways.

The majority of humanity will not be changing their ways so dramatically any time soon…

What makes u type that? Don’t thing anything I’ve typed sugeestes I feel theartened. What is your evidence?

We spent lots of time during the YERT year (and still to this day) reflecting on what it means for us to put a link to something on our site, let alone make a film about it. We generally tried to let the people in the video do the talking, rather than tell them what to think. The whole year was a mindblowing experience during which we really had to exercise letting go– letting go of what we thought was important, letting go of what we thought was going to happen during our lives, letting go of what other people thought about our actions and explorations. I appreciate the dialogue that we’re able to have here. If we can’t even entertain extreme ideas then we’re not particularly well-suited to make the significant changes that nearly every person we interviewed felt were necessary to avoid civilization-wide problems.

Please keep to topic, as we have guests. Thank you all.

Thank you three for joining us and for sharing all of this wiht us. You have struck a lot of chords tonight.

your obvious hostility to what the people in this film are up to. its pretty obvious, unless you just talk to everyone that way.

Living in a cave is hardly mainstream, I’m sorry if you can’t see that. And that you can’t see how posting that lifeststyle on a mainstream lefty site won’t discredit such site.

interesting point Knoxville. i’d love to believe that we can “change” our ways, but i’m not always so sure. what i DO know is that a guaranteed way not to effect change is to not try.

If you were driving all those miles, just seeing all the parts of the country kind of forces a lot of that

I got the impression the “dugout” was a really sweet old guy. I heard him blowing on the harp, did he play his guitar while you were there?

Lisa, this is the best one yet! I thank YOU and the YERT Team for all of this!

Greatly educational, inspiring and entertaining, all in one!

Well done, all of you.

Ignore the negativity, it ain’t no part of nuttin, as Bill Monroe once said. *G*

again, not suggesting it’s mainstream. do you find everything posted on HuffPo mainstream?

I never claimed that it was mainstream but it is information that should be available within the mainstream organizations.

I agree that there have been movements in the past, movements to free ourselves from “old ways. The unsettling part is that until now, we have never had the ability to change the ecology of the entire planet in such powerful, sudden ways. It’s a tricky moral issue. I’m not much of a historian, but it seems to me that pushing large amounts of people to make massive changes hasn’t really worked out too well in the past. It is a delicate path that we have before us.

he didn’t play guitar for us, just harmonica. he was a little under the weather for guitar that day. pretty sweet guy, though.

Chris Edelson’s diary is promoted!
The Media’s Generous Double Standard For Republican Extremists

Exploring all aspects of culture and society isnt an endorsement. It would be pretty dull world if we only watched and read things that ssupported our world view. Books and movies and art show us our world and by doing so, our reactions teach us about ourselves and others.

Ben, Julie mark, thnakyou for OUR BIGGEST MOVIE NIGHT EVER. We broke a record tonight in comments, and you have been such gracious and wonderful guests. and we’d love to have you back!

I said we each have to IMPROVE our ways and that we should encourage others to do the same.

I was just saying that efforts to CHANGE people’s ways is different.

Sorry to hear he wasnt feeling well. I REALLY enjoyed your convesations with him, His accent is very rare you know. Its Old appalacian, nearly extinct. He sounds very much like my grandfather did, and his brothers

thanks, Larue! i’ve enjoyed the lively conversation – all sides included ;).

YERT.com for all their videos, the 50 states in 52 weeks adventure!

Good luck with Sundance, I hope this breaks through for you all.

Sorry that’s not a reply to eChan.

I don’t frequent HuffPo so cannot respond to that. Merely pointing out that FDL has a political POV and that any front page post here will be used against FDL.

i hear ya, and agree. changing people is hard – easier to be the change to the extent we can. part of the point of the trip was to find examples (not necessarily cave dwelling) that illustrate how living more sustainably can also be a huge benefit financially, socially, healthfully, and spiritually. the fringe benefits are hopefully big enough to help people want to change on their own – always easier than forcing change.

I think there are some pretty stiff upper lips here:-)
Hey eCahn

well, i’ll certainly be curious to see the fallout – if there is any. i’ve enjoyed the conversation – spirited and thought-provoking. :)

We have been glad to be guests! Thanks so much for having us, and please stay tuned for our feature film. You can watch the trailer here:
http://bit.ly/GzAZ4 .

And stay tuned for updates on our facebook group and mailing list.

Facebook: http://stanford.facebook.com/g…..2361748204
Mailing List: http://www.yert.com/contact.php
Twitter: http://twitter.com/YERTGuy

Lisa, thanks so much for having us. It was a great time!

I’ve been thinking about your argument about this website and its goals. On that score, I think you’re overacting to think that every single discussion and every single thread must conform to group consensus. It’s a good thing to think about a variety of views within the intended goals of the site. Your assertion that this particular content might reflect on you and your views as a frequenter of the site seems a bit of an overstatement. Quit worrying. Remember that there’s so much we really DO have to worry about!

I was a leftie who worked on Wall St. for may years. Learned a lot about how not or not to prevent the cast.

Julie’s putting the baby to bed, but also sends her warmest thanks. :)

Que???

Not the discussion that’s the problem,. but rather how the righties are gonna characterize the discussion. We are not private.

I’m not too concerned.

Short version: don’t pretend u’re something u’re not.

agreed. not pretending.

But what are u promoting, and what do you hope to accomplish?

eCAHN, this is one of the most astonishing and annoying feats of sustained bullshit concern trollery i’ve ever seen here. and i say that as your usual admirer.

OK, kind of late for a last retort but, as i had to leave the conversation early and put our crying little one to bed by around response #100, i’m taking advantage of some harmless insomnia to say: Thanks for having us and thanks to everyone for checking in. We really did find a vast array of American solutions to sustainability on YERT and we are very excited to share them with whoever is interested. Goodnight to all, and to all a good night!

It was great having you in-
Thank you!