Take nothing but pictures; leave nothing but footprints.
But this phrase was coined before the term carbon footprint. Today one’s print is much larger than one’s foot.
With all of the fossil fuel needed to get somewhere, are we now unable to resolve our desire to see the world up close with our desire to tread lightly on the Earth?
The question becomes, Is it worth it to travel?
Here I will attempt to answer the question with an unequivocal YES!contingent upon doing things with the impact of our choices in mind.
Mountaintop removal is a relatively new type of coal mining that began in Appalachia in the 1970s as an extension of conventional strip mining techniques. Primarily, mountaintop removal is occurring in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee. Coal companies in Appalachia are increasingly using this method because it allows for almost complete recovery of coal seams while reducing the number of workers required to a fraction of what conventional methods require.
Please spread the word about this destructive and counter-productive practice!
Worried that stopping mountaintop removal would cost jobs in Appalachia? MTR actually competes with other forms of coal mining that require more people. The first thing that would happen if MTR were ended is that there would be more jobs in mining. Besides, there are already three times as many people in the area working on tourism rather than mining. MTR threatens to take those jobs away forever.
Aurangabad is a fairly large city in central India. It is best known for being home to the relics of an impressive Buddhist culture, Ellora & Ajanta, both of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Join me for a brief tour of these two surreal ruins as well as a peek at a lovely town that is too often overlooked by visitors to India.
I can see why CurrenTV might have been a bit reluctant to take on TLP in addition to all they have been dealing with this year. Today, very sad news out of the most oppressive regime in the world.
Euna Lee and Laura Ling were seized on March 17 while working on a television documentary about North Korean exiles crossing the border into China. It is unclear if they crossed the border into North Korea or were apprehended by aggressive border guards while still inside China.
…
The trial of the two journalists began on June 4, however no details emerged from the closed hearing until today. The North has not specified the exact charges, or allowed foreign observers into the proceedings.
Our thoughts and prayers are with these two brave young American women.
After surviving hundreds of years at the edge of the desert in a land more removed from the oceans than anywhere on Earth, the Silk Road oasis of Kashgar will soon be destroyed once and for all.
What endured the elements & foreign invasions for centuries failed to withstand 6 decades of Chinese rule.
Traders from Delhi and Samarkand, wearied by frigid treks through the world’s most daunting mountain ranges, unloaded their pack horses here and sold saffron and lutes along the city’s cramped streets. Chinese traders, their camels laden with silk and porcelain, did the same.
The traders are now joined by tourists exploring the donkey-cart alleys and mud-and-straw buildings once window-shopped, then sacked, by Tamerlane and Genghis Khan.
When people like this are givin’ it away for free!
Call me a wuss, but that song almost always chokes me up. Never more so than when watching this video. I loves me some good street/train station theater.
Also known as “the land of a million elephants,” Laos is a tiny country in southeast Asia about which most people know less than they do about any of its neighbors (China, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar & Cambodia.)
Join me for a virtual tour of this fascinating nation with videos & pictures galore, and maybe a bit of history and politics too.
It’s been a long, hard slog to get our project poised for success. We’ve worked as hard on this endeavor as anything I’ve done in this life thus far. And we’re not done yet.
However…I’m dying to do some more traveling soon with or without camera crew in tow. Despite what some of you may romanticize about my travels, there are innumerable places that I haven’t been. And plenty of others where I’d be thrilled to return. Considering that Swat Valley in Pakistan has agreed to impose Sharia Law, and that Thailand is quickly headed toward martial law & a collapse of its government, I’ll cross those two off the Return List for now.
Of the places I’ve never been, I’m not sure how long the “No, thanks” list would be. It’s shorter than it would be for most Americans. For example, Iran is somewhere I’ve wanted to visit for many years, inasmuch as I inquired about a visa at the Iranian consulate in Peshawer, Pakistan, a town that is now in disarray as militant Islam gains traction in the region. There are obvious “No Gos” like Somalia. But others that sound unthinkable, like Sudan, I would consider (I’ve heard their ruins rival Egypt’s.)
If you had a choice to go anywhere on the planet right now- April, 2009 - where would it be?
I’m obviously working on my answer for the same question.
