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Yep, you read correctly: you are the problem. We’ll admit it wholeheartedly: so are we. We’re all the problem. Our trips to the grocery store, our commutes to and from work, or our personal favorite, driving to the gym (get over yourself, really), these are all reasons why our air quality sucks.

In fact, pretty much everything we do sucks. We spew carbon with any type of movement other than walking or riding a bike (which, actually, produced some carbon during manufacture). Even taking a bus to school has an impact (if you’ve ever been caught behind one of the black smoke-belching beasts, you’re well aware of this).

And it’s not just the stuff we do directly that sucks. What we do indirectly actually blows, as well. That burger you had for lunch? Before it landed on your plate, that cow was farting up a storm on a pasture somewhere. We’re not talking a “poot poot” here and a “poot poot” there; Bessie was actually ripping about 200-400 quarts of farts every single day.

A little fart seems pretty benign, right? Maybe even funny? Too bad how there are 97 million Bessies in America, each farting 200-400 quarts a day. Know how much methane that puts in the air in total? Somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 billion pounds every year.

Here’s a formula to help you remember how terrible you are to earth: Burger=methane=greenhouse gas=global warming=melting ice caps=rising sea levels=America is the next Atlantis.

See what we just did there? We pointed out why you’re contributing to global warming though everything you do (albeit, with hyperbole). Which is why you should help where you can. If we had less tact, we might use this occasion to insert a quip about why YaTrips can help you resolve the karma you incurred from your steak dinner. But we won’t. Because we’re classy. Just like you. And classy people use YaTrips.

Filed under: climate change, ride sharing by kumar
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Amber, a rocket scientist, calculated that we drive over 2.6 trillion miles each year in America. So how can a campaign to drive A Million Miles Less matter? Because it’s a starting point. We have to begin someplace. Someplace, where each of us can participate in a small, practical way that collectively becomes a significant contribution. Whoever thought that the first 5 or 6 health food stores near college campuses in the Sixties would evolve into the mainstream organic food movement of today? Small meaningful contributions by many people can bring about enormous change.

We can no longer afford the luxury of indifference. Almost everything on Earth that is frozen is melting.

And if we…

If we wait to act, we’ll be in deep trouble. And deep water.

If we wait until we’re able to replace our cars with hybrids, we will have caused large-scale irreparable damage in the interim.

If we wait for government-legislated change, we’ll be waiting about 140 years.

If we continue to emit CO2 at our present rate, we’ll be putting 12,138 pounds of the stuff into our atmosphere every year. Each.

If we pretend that we can’t make a difference, we’re lying.
The greatest American Ambassador to the world in the last 231 years has been the innate goodness of the American people.

Create Good Carma through Yatrips

This is the purpose of A Million Miles Less: to create good Carma by doing something good for the world and ourselves. If we share a ride with two people, we get an effective 65 mpg immediately. That’s a great deal that’s hard to beat and amazingly easy to do, thanks to Yatrips. It’s a great way to do good

Social networking is one of the most dynamic contributions of technology on the internet by facilitating social relationships. Yatrips’ Energy Technology transitions these relationships into in-person friendships in a meaningful way that contributes to the good of the world and documents the difference we are making.

Yatrips’ makes it easy for you to share rides to the places you want and need to go with your friends and to make new friends. When you pick up a friend and go someplace together, you don’t think of that as ride-sharing. Use Yatrips in the same spirit; to share rides, make friends and help Mother Earth.

If only 20,000 people share rides for only 50 miles each trip, that will reduce CO2 emissions into the atmosphere by 971,000 lbs, or 440 metric tons, or 68 Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaurs, (slightly under-nourished) and that is what we call a good beginning.

Filed under: climate change, yatrips by Yadmin
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When Bob Dylan penned the lyrics to his 1964 release, The Times They are A-Changin’, he encouraged us to

gather ’round people, wherever you roam and admit that the waters around you have grown.

Since Dylan recorded these lyrics in 1963, Peru’s Qori Kalis glacier has shrunk by 10 percent and the ice cap atop Mount Kenya has decreased in size by 40 percent. The Artic ice cap, not to be outdone, has accelerated its own melting; a gloomy prediction once forecasted its demise by 2050. In May 2007, that prediction was revised to 2020.It took over 40 years and some tremendously powerful imagery, but we’ve finally admitted that the waters, indeed, have grown.

Filed under: climate change by kumar
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Americans are a busy bunch; we work, we shop, we play and most of us accomplish this with our cars; more than 127 million cars, in fact. Coupled with our SUVs and light trucks numbering approximately 73 million, Americans are armed with over 200 million motor vehicles. And we’re not roadshy. Each vehicle in the United States drives approximately 12,000 miles per year.

I’m not a rocket scientist, but my friend, Amber is, and according to her calculations:

200,000,000 automobiles x 13,048 miles per year= 2,609,600,000,000 miles per year

For those of you who are overwhelmed by zeros (and you’re not alone), that figure is over 2.6 trillion. Americans alone, drive enough to circle the equator of our planet roughly one hundred four million, seven hundred ninety-nine thousand times per year.The average passenger car gets 21.5 miles to the gallon. The average light truck gets 17.2 miles. (more…)

Filed under: climate change by kumar
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In America, we each drive an average of 12,500 miles per year. Our vehicles average 21.5 miles per gallon. For every mile we drive (in a passenger car) we release .971 lbs of CO2 into the atmosphere. Sorry folks, but that economy car you drive is no exception. That means after one year, you just released 12,137 lbs of CO2 into the atmosphere that isn’t going anywhere. In weight, that equals one slightly undernourished Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur into the sky that’s here to stay. Once it’s up there we can’t get rid of it. What we can do is to put fewer monsters up there. If you have a significant other and a couple kids or a bunch of housemates, every year we put up a small herd of dinosaurs and the effect they are having on us is monstrous.

Filed under: climate change, yatrips by swami
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How the heck does that happen?

Here’s how!

Filed under: climate change by kumar
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