Alan Winslow and Morrigan McCarthy recently returned home after a very long trip. Over 10 months and 11,000 miles these two travelers road bicycles across the country and back again. Departing from New York in October of 2008, they pedaled down the Atlantic Coast, across the Great Plains to the Pacific Ocean. They road up through the Pacific Northwest, over the Rocky Mountains, back across the Plains and returned to the Adirondacks in early August.
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In itself, this is not such an amazing feat. But as Winslow and McCarthy made their way across the county they collected a series of personal interviews and incredible photographs. Their mission was to document the nation’s thoughts on the subject of the climate change.
--Winslow and McCarthy spoke to ordinary people in big cities and small towns throughout the United States. Their plan was to discover the overlooked stories of everyday Americans who struggle with notions of human contributions to a warming planet and they role they might play in environmental protection. In their blog called Project Tandem the two share their pictures and tales of people they encountered on their journey. In this interview they tell us a little about their experience.
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Out here on the Midwestern prairies of Wisconsin were surrounded by acres of farmland. This time of year as we ride road bikes along the creamy smooth highways of Dane County. From one township to the next it’s vast fields of tall green corn plants as far as the eye can see.
[caption id="attachment_616" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Photo by Michael Leland "]
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Averaging between 14 and 17 mile per hour, we whiz past one corn field after the next. With ours heads tucked in the draft stream keeping pace with the summer training schedule the last thing anyone’s thinking about is the soil beneath our spinning tires.
It’s not just dirt you know. Earlier this summer during the Mountain Film Festival in Telluride Colorado I met a guy, a scientist who succeeded in changing how I’ll think about soil forever.