The last golden rays of 2011 slipped away gloriously yesterday, lingering across the chalky face of the Pinnacles, an ancient towering limestone formation in the north of Boone County, Missouri – one of the places on this planet I will always call home.

The unseasonable warmth had us removing layers as we scrambled up to catch a glimpse of the world from on high. Another climatic oddity in a year that was full of them. Change is in the air, for those with eyes to see: We are closing the book on a year that saw vast swaths of the American Southwest go up in smoke, millions of dollars of hurricane damage in Vermont, a monster tornado that erased big chunks of Joplin, massive flooding in Australia, the Phillippines and Southeast Asia and record-breaking heat waves in Europe and much of the United States.

My mother’s garden in the Missouri countryside was cooked before it could be harvested. Where I live, in Mexico, widespread crop failure due to extended drought pushed more subsistence farmers to leave the land for the traffic-choked cities or for a desperate, life-threatening dash for El Norte, the forbidden promise of employment across the northern border. But today, on this balmy December day, global warming seems a welcome respite from the bone-chilling cold that usually accompanies us at this time of year. So I won’t complain.

Much has been written about this turning of the ages; no place on Earth is more excited about the Mayan prophecies than Mexico, birthplace of the Mayan calendar that ends this year. To me, it’s impossible not to link this prophecy with the profound changes we are facing. I’m not speaking of Armageddon – rather, a time of reckoning as we end a cycle of industrial excess. The Mayan people I have spoken with are laughing at the notion that the end of the calendar means the end of the world. It’s simply the end of a cycle, and the beginning of a new one, they reassure anyone who asks. But in more serious conversations, they shared with me their hope, as fervent as my own, that a long-awaited shift is pending, and in fact has already begun.

“After five centuries of oppression, we’re ready for a change,” Rony, a Mayan friend from Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, told me. “It’s the only hope we have.”

We in the global North have a much different perspective than a poor Guatemalan. But like Rony, I stand convinced that a shift in our paradigm – our way of structuring the world, and indeed, our way of thinking – is long overdue. It could well be that 2012 will be just another blip in the ongoing march of human events: Like the much-ballyhooed Y2K, which many feared would leave the world in the dark, we might wake up the morning after and laugh.

But an irrevocable shift has already begun, and the Earth is rumbling beneath our feet. Our climate is changing around us, and the petroleum and other carbon-based fuels we’ve based our civilization upon is rapidly disappearing. Those twin crises are feeding a third, more visible one: the financial crisis that has the global economy hanging by a thread.

What better moment to reflect on the possibilities that the transition ahead might offer us. Rather than wait until crisis is staring us in the face, let’s confront it together and plan a gradual reduction in our dependence on oil. Transition Town movements and other grassroots groups around the world are not waiting for their governments to do it; they are already immersed in the work of creating and implementing energy descent plans, reconstructing webs of relationships in their communities, strengthening local economies and building resilience into their local communities. They are envisioning a future less dependent on consumerism and more dependent on each other.

Like Rony, I don’t claim to know what the end of the Mayan calendar really means. But like him, I stand in the fervent hope that the noblest instincts of the human spirit will prevail in the transition that faces us this year and in the years to come.

I close with words of wisdom from my friend Holger Hieronimi, a Mexican-German permaculture teacher and designer:

“The change is happening today, here and now. It’s like the transformation of a voracious and predatory caterpillar, into a butterfly of many colors. It’s happening on every level, throughout the entire system, within us, and beyond us as well. It means the redesign of landscapes internal and external. It means leaving the comfortable place of security, and preparing oneself for times of insecurity, uncertainty, even convulsions, and a total reorganization of the system.

It is a change of a society of industrial growth toward a new culture that sustains life.

Instead of resisting the change, we can be creative participants and protagonists in this process, supporting our families and communities in this difficult process of transformation.”

(Read the entire essay in Spanish on his website, here.)

Happy 2012. Let’s embrace the new and let go of the old with love, hope and light. Bring on the butterflies.

Unforgettable moments flip through the slideshow of my memory: my father’s boyish grin lighting up in spite of himself as he stood, lifejacket up around his ears, the dolphin leaning in and kissing his cheek. Shaking his head in disbelief as our two waiters explained the special six-course meal that the famous French chef at Piaf, Michele Mustiere, had prepared for him, taking into account all of the complicated restrictions of his diet. Seeing him lying back on a canopied lounge on the beach, soaking up the sun and the attentions of an efficient and watchful staff.

My factory-worker dad, father of nine and grandfather of a houseful of rambunctious little ones, had never come close to such luxury. He hadn’t even known that it existed. A shadetree mechanic and consummate fixer of broken things, I found him examining the cooling system in our suite and chatting up the shuttle drivers and motorcycle salesmen we would meet along the way.

Recently diagnosed with mesothelioma, an asbestos-induced cancer with a grim prognosis, he had decided to work with a naturopathic doctor to boost his immune system in an attempt to beat back the cancer. One strategy was a radical change in diet; my meat-and-potatoes Dad was a sudden vegan. Another, according to all that we had read, was to keep living to the fullest, doing things that brought him joy.

“I’m not afraid to die,” he told me not long after his diagnosis. “But as long as I’m here, I’m going to live.”

I wanted to support him in that vow on every level. I had long dreamed of bringing my parents to Mexico, my adopted second country, to share with them a bit of the culture that I had come to love. Now I knew there was no time to waste. I persuaded them to get their passports, and in December, we escaped the dreary Midwest winter for nine precious days on the Yucatan Penninsula.

“Just when you think it can’t get any better… it does,” he mused as we wound our way down the thatch-roofed passageway through the jungle, one beautiful vista opening after another; here a garden with a small waterfall, there a cenote filled with clear spring water. Everything had been developed in this resort with an eye toward protecting the fragile seaside ecosystem; Grand Velas has won numerous awards for its environmental stewardship, and it’s evident as we look around us – especially as we walked along the picture-perfect beach and saw the long expanses of green that extended between Grand Velas and neighboring resorts. An environment all the more appealing for my forest-dwelling folks.

There were moments not made for Kodak on this trip, to be sure. The rental car agency that charged us twice the price for insurance what we’d paid for the online vehicle rental; the frantic hour spent looking for them when I lost them to Merida’s chaotic traffic; the unpleasant surprise when Dad reached out to grab a tree in the jungle walk at Xel Ha – and pulled his hand away to find it crawling with biting ants; his long silences as I drove, catching a farway look in his eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Penny for your thoughts,” I’d say.

“Watch out, you’re about to hit that speed bump,” he’d respond.

Moments like these I ached to know what was on his mind – and more importantly, that he was really on the mend, that the diet and all the supplements and naturopathic treatments were doing the trick, that his low energy was due to his healing process and not his decline.

This was not for us to know, as he gently reminded me time and again. “It’s all in the Lord’s hands,” he would say.

I would take a deep breath and nod.

The first five days of our trip we’d spent on a road trip to Merida, where we stayed three days in the picturesque colonial city and two days at an atmospheric and picturesque restored hacienda, Hacienda Petac. Friday we drove back to Cancun, touring Chichen Itza and a bit of the colonial city of Valladolid along the way. We spent the night at the JW Marriott in the Zona Hotelera, spending a relaxed morning on the beach before heading down to Grand Velas on the Riviera Maya – named by Conde Nast and AAA as one of the world’s finest hotels. We had saved the best for last.

Saturday afternoon we arrived at Grand Velas, driving over a moat and through a gateway in the vast expanse of white stone that walled off this exclusive compound. “Welcome home,” said the young man with the clipboard, and we crossed another blue waterway onto a narrow lane that wound through the jungle. We found our way to the elegant thatch-roofed lobby. Our car was whisked away and our personal butler, Aldo, saw us to our spacious picture-perfect Zen Suite, with a giant jacuzzi and French doors that opened out onto the room and a patio that opened out onto a water garden complete with bougainvillea and a lilac-colored water lily. Beyond the tiny garden extended the jungle; beyond that, the mangrove forest, and beyond that, the beach and the brilliant blue Caribbean.

All this beauty was hard to leave behind, but dinner at Frida’s, one of the resort’s seven award-winning restaurants, awaited; named for the iconic Frida Kahlo, whose portrait brightens up the entry with an earthy radiance, the decor, like the menu, presents Mexican traditions with a fresh and modern twist. A classically dressed Mexican singer and guitarist serenaded us with romantic ballads as we dined. To my delight, salmon al pastor was on the menu. How I’d longed to share one of my onetime Mexican favorites – tacos al pastor, with its succulent pork marinated in the juices of a pineapple and turned on a rotisserie in front of the fire. Now, since an occasional serving of fish was allowed in the second phase of his diet, I could share the essence of this typical taste treat with him. He loved it almost as much as I did.

Day Two began early with an hour’s drive south to Tulum, with its ancient pyramids on the coast. The stark white limestone stood out against the brilliant blue sky and the multihued turquoise and cerulean waters, and he pronounced the view worth the walk – a circuit that a year ago he could have breezed through before breakfast had become a rigorous workout, but one he completed with good cheer.

Dinner found us at the unforgettable Piaf, named for the tiny French singer with a voice that conquered hearts the world over. “Think of us, not as your waiters, but as your tour guides on this culinary adventure,” said Adolfo, one of two young men who meticulously attended us, as he handed Dad a damp cloth to wipe his hands before commencing a procession of works of culinary art, beginning with a salad of mixed lettuces and flower petals accompanied with a red wine sorbet and a quail egg.

The dishes were dismayingly tiny, to my Dad’s way of thinking, but I promised he would not go hungry. Six courses later, Chef Mustiere himself stood before us and explained the way he’d prepared our dessert himself – a strawberry savayón, a confection sweetened with port wine, alcohol evaporated off, and topped with a golden-brown merengue – all, apparently, on my Dad’s diet. Dad nodded his appreciation to the white-garbed gentleman – “It’s all just great,” he said, and posed sheepishly for a few photos.

“Can I ask for seconds?” he wanted to know. But the chef was already gone.

Monday was the exciting climax of our Riviera Maya adventure, with a dolphin swim scheduled at Xel-Ha, one of several nature-oriented theme parks along the coast. Irasema was our guide, taking us on a walk that led through the jungle and past all manner of means to entertain ourselves in the aquatic wonderland of the Yucatan: cenotes where you could dive in, enter a cave and emerge downstream on the shore of an inlet; ropes you could swing on like a modern-day Tarzan; a cliff you could dive off of into the deep blue waters below; and a “lazy river” that you could lie on an inner tube and wind your way through the park for nearly an hour.

Dad’s a country boy who grew up on the river, and just last summer, I’d have been struggling to keep up with him. But these days his circulation was not what it used to be, and he was afraid of catching a chill, so we walked along the path and wistfully watched others splashing joyfully along the way.

Nonetheless, come 1:30, we found ourselves lined up for the orientation with the dolphin trainer. “Prepare yourselves for the experience of a lifetime,” the excited young man advised us. Dad looked dubious and fiddled with his lifejacket. Mom looked tiny in her child-sized jacket. We lined up with the three young girls who were assigned to our group – Sophie, Zoey and Phoebe, aged from 7 to 11 – and followed our guide to the dock.

“It looks cold!” said Dad.

“It’s going to be an adventure!” said Mom.

Both of them were right.

Our dolphin was named for Hunahpu, one of the twin heroes whose stories were told in the ancient Mayan text the Popol Vuh. Like his namesake, a feisty soccer player, our Hunahpu was a playful fellow indeed, flirting and kissing and splashing and dancing in turn with each of us. As gentle as he seemed, we also had a glimpse of his strength when we formed a circle and he swam rapidly around and around us, surrounding us in a powerful wave that nearly knocked us over.

Dad’s tense face relaxed into a smile as the dolphin performed his antics, and he seemed to have all but forgotten the cold by the climax – the dolphin push. “No, no, no, I think that’s a little too much,” he said as I repeated to him the procedure outlined by the trainers. Two dolphins would place their noses at the base of each foot and push him rapidly through the water, eventually lifting him upright as if he were skiing.

“You love skiing, Dad – remember?” I cajoled him. “And this is easier – the dolphins do all the work!”

Finally, he consented. One of the girls and I went first to show him how it was done – and it was exhilarating to feel the two shiny noses planted on the soles of my feet, and my body lifting from the force of forward movement. I turned to see Dad preparing for his turn, hoping that I’d been right, and that it wouldn’t be too much for him.

I needn’t have worried. The same Dad who’d taught me to ski, coaxing me through my fear bit by bit to my legs from the cockpit of his beloved boat, took to the dolphin push like a champ, nearly rising to a full stand before taking the plunge. He emerged grinning from ear to ear.

“That was something,” he said.

But Dad is a man not given to idle talk, and I wasn’t sure if I’d hit the mark with all of this activity. Was he enjoying it all – or just humoring me? Would he have preferred to just lounge in our suite and surf the massive flat-screen TV?

It wasn’t until the day after we returned that I got my answer. I tuned in as I heard him relate the whole tale to his friends and brothers on the phone.

“You just had to see it to believe it,” he’d say. “…and there were these chefs…. and we had a butler… and they treat you like a king… and the dolphin kissed us, and we kissed the dolphins.”

“And me, an old boy from Iron County, Missouri. It was just more than I could have imagined.”

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

I’ll admit I chose it because I read in Rough Guides that it offered a good price, free wireless, good coffee and a nice atmosphere in the historic district. Little did I know that I had inadvertently chosen the city’s first “green” hotel – at least the first to be certified as such by Guatemala’s Green Deal organization.

Nor did I know it was the labor of love of three generations of French-Guatemalans. Three generations of the Luis Rey Tarot family have infused this elegant historic neo-colonial building (or republican, as it’s called here) with a sense of home.

Left to right: Silvia , Maria Isabel and Luis Rey Tarot II.

It all began with a French immigrant who decided to flee the violence of World War II and cast his lot in the in the coffee-growing region of Alta Verapaz, Guatemala. His grandson, Luis Rey Tarot I, moved to the city in the late 1980s, bought the grand old house, fixed it up and dedicated it to his grandfather, decorating it in the style of an old coffee plantation house. The hotel’s name was a Quiché Maya twist on the family name, “Rey” or “King;” Ajau means king in Quiché.

“There were already a number of hotels with the name ‘Rey,’ and we were looking for something different. So we thought back to our homeland, and came up with ‘Ajau,’” said Luis I, whom I met on my second day as he worked behind the counter.

Luis II, left, and Luis I, right.

“Are you the owner?” I asked the kindly, European-looking gentleman. “No,” he laughed. “I’m just another worker, like everyone else.” It wasn’t until days later that I realized he was the hotel’s founder.

It was the second Luis Rey Tarot, the one who is now in charge, who implemented the hotel’s environmental policy. The family switched over to biodegradable cleaning supplies and trained the workers in how to use them effectively; they’ve converted much of the lighting to energy-efficient fluorescent and continue to do so; and they’ve established recycling bins throughout the hotel for paper, plastic and other receptacles, and wife Silvia de Rey collects the contents daily and drives them home, where there’s space to keep them for the weekly pickup. Recycling has cut back their waste disposal to a third of what it once was.

The hotel’s café provides local and regional products as much as possible, including coffee from cooperatives in Coban and Antigua and honey from Ixcan. Daughter Maria Isabel is working on a flier for hotel guests that will explain how they can be more environmentally sensitive while enjoying their travels in Guatemala.

They began the process a decade ago when Luis first took over the hotel. “I grew up bathing in the rivers of my family homeland in Coban,” he said. “You can’t do that anymore; they’re all becoming polluted. I wanted to do something about that.”

The family was rewarded with official recognition when they became the first hotel in Guatemala City to receive the Green Deal certification. This program required certification applicants to comply with certain guidelines in three categories: social, environmental, and worker relations.

“It’s important to realize the most important part of a hotel is the workers,” said Luis II. For that reason they subsidize health care expenses for workers and their families, provide special services like eye exams and glasses, and try to provide a family environment for everyone. And indeed the workers have been the ones who have done the most to make me feel at home.

Manrique Vasquez, receptionist, who is also studying to be a radio broadcaster.

Floridalma Reyes, the excellent chef.

Pablo Santos, the watchful security man.

It’s been a challenge to run a green business in Guatemala, they say – in part, because the government offers no support or incentives or even tax credits for businesses that want to make a shift to more sustainable practices. Eco-friendly products like compact fluorescent light bulbs and biodegradable cleaning products are hard to get and much more expensive here. There’s also a lack of information about products and options locally, and doing your own research can lead to some costly mistakes, they’ve found.

For example, there was the time they invested in compact fluorescent bulbs for the public areas – but the wattage was too low and guests complained that the areas were dark. Then they bought the fluorescent rings, only to discover that they contained mercury.

Sometimes the answers are closer to home, however, Silvia went to an environmental seminar and learned that she could cut back on water consumption by placing a brick or a bottle of water in each toilet tank.

“I came home all excited, ready to put bricks in all the tanks,” she laughed. “Unfortunately I found that there wasn’t room. There wasn’t even room for a small water bottle.”

After trying several approaches a worker asked her what she was trying to do.

“Oh, that’s easy!” he told her, and showed her how to adjust the flushing mechanism to allow less water to fill the tanks.

Of course, nothing is really easy in Guatemala, and the organization that administered the Green Deal program is now defunct, so they and other sustainable business owners are going through another process to be re-certified. The new program that will administer certification for sustainable businesses, GREAT Green Deal, will be CERTIFICA (Certificaciones de Centroamérica, S.A.)

I will be continuing to write about this program as it unfolds. Meanwhile, questions can be directed to CERTIFICA General Manager Carmen Perez at carmen.perez@sellosverdes.com or to the business promotor, Marlen Garcia, at marlen.garcia@sellosverdes.com. The group hopes to have a website of certified businesses up and running soon, and they’ve promised to keep me posted.

“The new certification process is not necessarily a bad thing, said Marlen Garcia. “It gives us another chance to connect with business owners that have demonstrated an interest in the implementation of best practices related to sustainable tourism and also have demonstrated social and environmental responsibility. Even though we and the owners have found that this new program is more rigorous than the last one, we agree that it will give more credibility to the efforts done by them before third parties and new markets.”

Meanwhile, the Reys are focusing on doing what they can to make their corner of the world a better place.

“We want our grandchildren to have the things we enjoyed when we were growing up,” said Silvia. “We have everything here in Guatemala – volcanoes, lakes, rivers, beaches – but we have to do a better job of conserving them.”

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

We all know and understand that to reduce any environmental impact we might have when we travel we have to change the way we travel as whole. However, it’s a misconception that in order to partake of sustainable travel, one must make many a sacrifice.

Sustainable travel doesn’t have to mean abstain-able travel. You don’t have to forego things in their entirety; rather, you just have to give it careful consideration and maybe go about travel with a different mindset.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember when embarking on a venture (or adventure) would be to first of all remember to travel with an attitude that is geared towards sustainable travel. It’s all well and good if you start a journey with a mind to travel in a sustainable fashion, but it’s a person’s attitude and ethic that will carry them through and aid them in making the right decisions.

A good – and easy – way to do this is to just not do anything unnecessary. Avoid paper by booking your travel plans and subsequent tickets online; e-tickets are a great way forwards. Support not only the indigenous culture of your destination, but support efforts that promote sustainable tourism and stay in hotels or residential facilities that also promote a sustainable way of life.

As the sayings go, “it’s easy when you know how” and “practice makes perfect”, so with this in mind, you have to understand that it might not come naturally to you, but with practice and help you too can become a sustainable travel guru. The most damaging thing you can do is to just not care, so start caring today and if you already cared, then care more!

For more travel tips and vacation inspiration, check out the Tripbase
Travel Blog / Tripbase site.

About Tripbase:

Tripbase eliminates the time-consuming and frustrating online search
process by providing travelers with personalized travel
recommendations for their next trip.

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Outside in the darkness, up in the hills not far from here, a chorus of coyotes is greeting the coming of the dawn. How appropriate, I think with a smile. Here in Huehuecoyotl, place of the old, old coyote, I’ve just bid farewell to the greatest coyote of all, Subcoyote Alberto Ruz Buenfil, who is letting me use his home as a base for a few days. Now it’s his time to head into Mexico City, where he is taking the lessons of the Rainbow Caravan for Peace into the barrios of that other place of coyotes, Coyoacán.

I’ve come to Huehuecoyotl to meet his family and some of the people who form this core group of world-changers. I’ve come to break bread, share stories, and glean advice for the journey ahead. Alberto has been in a whirlwind of activity since I arrived – he’s playing a lead role in a film about Fellini’s spiritual journey through Mexico, and the ghost-spirit of the great Italian filmmaker was just here to supervise from another dimension the shooting of some scenes; longtime friend Jose Arguelles, author and visionary, just spent some time here. During my two days here he’s just finished another book and sent it out to the reviewers, underwent a root canal and many hours of community meetings and obligations, and bid farewell to his daughter who is on her way back to Spain; now he’s preparing for a thousand-drum salute and fundraiser for the people of Haiti and a visit from Bolivian President Evo Morales, but still he took time to show me around, orient me to the solar shower and the composting toilet, share photos and reminisce about the incredible 13-year nomadic ecovillage whose trail I now follow, from Mexico to Patagonia.

An old legend tells of a time when the Earth is in crisis, and life itself is in danger. In these times, the legend goes, a new type of warrior will arise: a tribe of all races, creeds and nationalities who will be known by the universal symbol of the rainbow, and driven by love, their mission will be to save the planet from extinction.

So writes Alberto in his book, “Los Guerreros del Arcoiris.” (Rainbow Nation Without Borders-Bear & Company publishers)-Alberto has dedicated his life to nurturing this tribe, leading the Rainbow Caravan of Peace on an epic journey through Mexico, Central and South America. This nomadic ecovillage traveled from country to country, led by Alberto’s old schoolbus, La Mazorca, colorfully painted to resemble the iconic ear of corn. The ever-changing tribe sought to connect groups active in resistance to the destructive corporate model. They set up camp in jungles and mountains, in indigenous villages and urban ghettos, sharing music, theater and seeds of practical eco-wisdom: green building techniques, simple alternative technologies, natural healing techniques and more. At the same time, they gathered up bits of local lore and wisdom and connected the disparate groups into a hemispheric network. In August of 2009, the tribe finally disbanded, each dispersing to different parts of the continent to continue the consuming work of social change.

Alberto returned to Huehuecoyotl, the picturesque ecovillage established in 1982 in the mountains near Tepoztlan by Alberto and his community of rainbow warriors. He is letting me use his home as a base for a few days as I organize myself for the next phase of my journey. The beautiful adobe-brick home is filled with light from the arching windows that look out upon the grassy valley below; out the front door, past a tall green row of fragrant hoja santa plants, limestone cliffs tower protectively beyond the beautiful home of his son Odin, a musician and one of Mexico’s leading permaculture practitioners.

I will see Alberto once again before I go, when he hosts Bolivian President Evo Morales for a brief visit to the city on Sunday. Meanwhile, here is a short interview I did with him recently, at his office in the Casa de Cultura Reyes Heroles in Coyoacán. His warning comes as a coyote howl in the fading moonlight.

“Like the Mayan Zapatistas said, we have had a long time to dream. Now is the time to wake up. Because any dream we don’t manifest becomes a nightmare, made by somebody else.”

This week I finally got a chance to go and see it for myself, and to meet some of its inhabitants. It was as beautiful as I’d imagined; constructed in the early 1980s by artists, green architects and permaculturists, the community is infused with a colorful yet gentle aesthetic that pleases the spirit as well as the eye.

Many of the residents, like “Subcoyote” Alberto Ruz Buenfil, divide their time between Huehue (as it’s known for short, pronounced ‘Wayway,”) and various other spots around the globe, where they teach, play music, act in films or otherwise engage in another aspect of their lives, generally related to promoting social change in one way or another.

The community was formed in 1982 when its founders, most of them belonging to a troupe of itinerant actors called the Illuminated Elephants, decided to put down some roots. Ecology ranked high in the group’s values, so the community became Mexico’s first Ecovillage, a concept based on ecological design principles. “It’s a very low-impact community, utilizing every type of alternative technology we can,” said Giovanni Ciarlo, one of the residents I spoke with during my stay. “Our biggest capital is our tight social network, and also the fact that it’s integrated into nature and has an artisitic sensibility.”

Giovanni and his partner Kathleen are musicians and teachers, migrating back and forth between here and Waterford, Conn. Giovanni and Kathy are the founders of Sirius Coyote Music, an innovative Latin America-inspired musical group that incorporates environmental education and community building into their work. They perform on more than 30 different instruments from a variety of cultures, some of which they’ve crafted themselves. As if that’s not enough, Giovanni also serves as board president for the Global Ecovillage Network.

That tight social network includes Liora Adler and Andrew Langford, who just returned home after several months of teaching in the U.S. Virgin Islands and traveling in Andrew’s native England and Liora’s native U.S. to visit with family and meet new grandchildren. Now hard at work fully reintegrating into the work of running the revolutionary Gaia University, they took time for tea and an interview, which I’ll be publishing here shortly.

It also includes Alberto’s son Odin, a world-class musician and permaculture designer who shared with me many tracks of his globally influenced compositions, and his partner Sadie, a teacher and author, together with their winsome toddler Nayeli.

You can meet Giovanni and Kathy, Alberto and Odin, Liora and Andy and take a little virtual tour of the beautiful community of Huehuecoyotl here, on the Flickr slide show I’ve created. Click “show info” for captions.

Currently the community is accepting visitors on retreat with advance notice, and periodically organizes workshops on a variety of topics. For more information, contact Giovanni at sircoyote@aol.com, and see the Huehuecoyotl web page.

To learn more about ecovillages, see the Global Ecovillage Network homepage.

To learn more about permaculture, an ecological design system that is making waves throughout the world, see the Permaculture Institute page. To learn more about permaculture efforts throughout Latin America, see Permacultura America Latina.

To read about them, please visit Guerreros de Guadalajara, a bilingual entry in my Flickr account.

La Minerva, warrior woman of old and symbol of modern-day Guadalajara, photo courtesy of TheLittleTx, Flickr Creative Commons.

My friend Alicia, like me, struggles to remember to bring the cloth shopping bags when she goes to the supermarket. This day, she remembered. Here’s a little reminder she likes to keep handy:

“It’s not enough to be biodegradeable; it’s necessary to be bioAGREEABLE.”

I liked the way this clever slogan captured one of the most important principles of sustainability: “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” In that order.

Carlos with his collection of miniature bicycles and a photo of his father, an avid bicyclist.

This intrepid group of biking photographers is dedicated to promoting biking in a variety of ways. Besides their weekly outings, which traverse a variety of rural terrains around Guadalajara and further afield, they’ve organized get-out-the-vote campaigns, children’s outings, first aid workshops, bicycle repair workshops, and a fundraiser for Haiti – all aboard the seat of a bicycle.

(Haiti Benefit Ride – Photos by Carlos Ibarra)

Founded by Carlos and other local photographers about two years ago, the group has grown to include non-photographers, as well, and works to initiate beginners into the biker’s life.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner, or a child, or even if you’ve never been on a bicycle,” Ibarra said. “The idea is to get out there and start pedaling, and we want to help with that. We’ve even had some riders who want to go faster, and they’ve gone on to form their own groups because we’re too slow – that’s ok. There’s room for everybody.”

That said, the group does some pretty heavy trekking, by a beginner’s standards. A recent fundraising ride for Haiti went 100 kilometers. And the off-trail mountain biking in Jalisco’s rugged countryside can be a challenge, especially when a storm comes up – as it did on a recent campout in Juan Rulfo country, from San Gabriel to Tapalpa.

“It was cool,” Ibarra enthused, showing photographs of dripping, smiling bikers. “It was an adventure.”

And indeed, this must be the most documented biking group of all time, with as many photographers as there are among its ranks. Here’s a slide show of the highlights from the group’s last two years.

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The group provides plenty of fun for the younger set, as well. A recent bicycle fiesta for the children, neices, nephews and young friends of Camara Rodante featured piñatas in the shape of cars.

“We were playing a little with the idea: Get rid of the cars!” said Ibarra, chuckling. “que no son muchos. It was something symbolic, and the kids loved it. Others didn’t want to because they liked the little car. But we were reinforcing the idea of using the bike – that it’s good for your health, that it doesn’t pollute, that you can move yourself quickly and easily.”

There are many calculators online that help you to figure out how much carbon you’ve generated and where you should donate it. Carbon Footprint is a nice flexible one that lets you calculate individual aspects of your life as opposed to doing a whole audit – both can be good, but since I’m on the road, my lifestyle doesn’t easily fit into many of these calculators. Since my main impact is travel, I figured my mileage and multiplied the air travel by 1.9 to account for the increased impact airplane emissions have (the amount used by Carbon Footprint). It then lets you select from a variety of worthy projects from Kenya to Central America.

Critics compare this system with the Catholic Church’s system of indulgences in Medieval times – a system that allowed people to “buy” forgiveness for their sins by making donations to the Church. They argue that there’s a wide variance among carbon offsetting groups, none of them are regulated and there’s no way to know for sure that the trees you’re paying to plant wouldn’t be planted anyway.

Now I’m not interested in buying forgiveness or polishing my image, and I don’t really care if the amount of carbon I’m generating is translated precisely into the right number of trees. I am, however, interested in minimizing my impact while promoting social change. So when I learned that The Farm in Tennessee had set up a system allowing donations to be used to plant trees at the Marda Permaculture Farm, I decided to go that route. I trust the judgment of the folks at The Farm, which has been a leader in promoting sustainable living around the globe for decades; and I also know quite a bit about the Marda project.

Although I don’t know them directly, I have a personal relationship the Marda Permaculture Farm because my sister Tami Brunk is a co-founder. She worked with founder Murad Alkufash to establish the organization, eventually traveling to Marda. She has shared with me much about the group’s work over the years, not just in terms of supplying much-needed food security but in building resilience and hope in the Palestinian territories, where those elusive qualities are so desperately needed.

So, having decided on where I wanted to put my money, I did my own calculations with the help of The Farm’s Trees for Airmiles page and
Geobyte’s City Distance Tool to calculate my mileage: Flying from St. Louis to Mexico City via Dallas racked up 1,481 miles; multiply that by 1.9 as Carbon Footprint suggests and you get 2,813 miles. Then I did a rough calculation of what I think the next two months will look like: Mexico City to Guadalajara to Nayarit to Guadalajara to Mexico City, then down to Cuernavaca, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Chiapas and Quintana Roo before heading over into Belize. All of that comes, very roughly, to about 2,793 miles.

Put it all together, and that comes to about 5,606 miles for the two months or so that I’ll need for Mexico. Using The Farm’s calculation of 1 tree per 5,000 for plane travel, and 1 tree per 1,100 miles for car travel (though I’ll mostly be traveling by bus, which should have a considerably lower impact), and I figured I’m more than covered at $10 a month, which will plant 30 trees this year.

I don’t know if it’s enough or too much. But at least I’m trying – and so are the folks in Marda. As I see it, that can only be a good thing.

What are your thoughts and experiences on the subject of carbon offsets? Please share in the comment section below.