Stu Rich

Dear Family and Friends,

The South America team is doing great in the rainforests of Ecuador! I had a lovely phone call from the team last night (Thursday), and got to speak with many of them. They sound great! They were celebrating American Thanksgiving at a restaurant in the city of Tena, about an hours drive from the rainforest biological station that is their home this week.

Since Sunday the team has been living in simple huts in the middle of the rainforest. Their days have been spent helping with the ongoing conservation effort being done by the Jatun Sacha foundation. Much of the team’s time has been spent working in the experimental organic gardens. Today (Friday) they were visiting communities that live on the edges of the rainforest and helping educate them on how to live in harmony with the forest. They have also had educational guided walks in the forest.

This Sunday the team will depart the rainforest and travel by bus about seven hours to the city of Quito. They will have all of Monday and Tuesday to explore the sites and bustling markets of Ecuador’s beautiful capital.

Then, next Wednesday, they will fly from Quito to the Galapagos Islands for a full week, and the final grand hurrah of their epic journey! More on that in an update later next week.

Please note that the team will continue to have limited access to internet and phone while in the rainforest.

As always, if anyone ever has any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me directly at any time.

I would like to wish a belated Happy Thanksgiving to all of the Americans!

Best wishes, Brad

One of the things I love about traveling to London is listening to the British speak the language.  I love a good Scottish brogue and am always amazed at the variety of accents that can be heard within the town of London.  One of the real challenges, however, is learning enough of the local sayings so that I can understand what they are talking about.  Here are a few of my favorites:

A dog’s breakfast - a real mess of things.

The dog’s bollox - literally a dog’s balls, but the meaning is something that is excellent.

Snap knicker elastic - again, something that is just excellent.

Teaching your grandmother to suck eggs - wait, WHAT?  translation - telling you something you already know.

I spent this past week in London attending the ESRI EMEA conference.  It was a great event in a wonderful city attended by about 1,500 participants from all across Europe and the Middle East and Africa.

There was a common question that I heard over and over again with folks that I met at the conference:

Please tell us that Barak Obama will win the election handily and that America will turn from its recent financial and foreign policies!  Europeans are generally incredulous that anyone could take Sarah Palin seriously and John McCain is generally portrayed as a bitter, intolerant old man.They are desperate for the US to find a sensible way back to the center and soon.

Living in America we become insulated on just how much we have alienated ourselves from the rest of the world during the past 8 years under George Bush.  I was struck by how frustrated (sometimes downright pissed off) our friends and allies in the rest of the world have become with what they see as America’s incredibly arrogant and unilateralist foreign and economic policy and our tendancy to shoot first and ask questions later.  There is actually an element of quiet glee expressed at watching the collapse of the arrogant American financial system that is only tempered by the fact that we are dragging the rest of the world down with us.  The next administration will certainly have their work cut out for them in repairing our relationships across the world.

The other perspective that really struck me this past week was that the Europeans are really SERIOUS about global climate change.  Carbon management is a big focus in Europe and government and business alike are making significant, measurable steps to reduce their carbon footprint.  UK has recently established the Carbon Trust as one mechanism to facilitate the reduction of atmospheric carbon emmisions.  Green energy projects and conservation measures get a lot of press and are far more advanced than in the US.  As one example, Manchester Airport has publically committed to being carbon neutral by 2015 and are undertaking a number of significant projects to achieve that goal.

I came back from my week in London with some valuable new perspective.  I can only hope that we as Americans can quit smoking our own exhaust and start learning how to be more responsible citizens of the broader global community.