Environmental activist and ocean rower Roz Savage hits the water today to embark on her 5th expedition, taking her from Fremantle, Australia to Mumbia, India.

I met Roz several years ago, and since have been constantly inspired by her commitment to spreading a positive message wherever she goes. If you spend time with her you’ll quickly learn that she was not too long ago a member of “normal” society, with the 9-5 cubicle job, a fabulous London living situation, a car… the list goes on. But one day she decided that there might be more to life than a steady income and life in the suburbs. So she did what any adventurous soul would do: plotted out a course for change.

For Roz that meant rowing solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

Not everyone is going to give up everything and pursue a similar path to Roz’s. But what is inspiring about this woman is that she doesn’t expect that from any of us. What she does expect is that we start to think about and question what kind of an impact our everyday lifestyles have. This certainly puts her on our list of women that kick ass.

We caught up with Roz a few days before her scheduled departure to learn a little more about this expedition and what she hopes others will gain from her experiences.

How is this expedition different from the last?

With every voyage, I feel like I learn something new. The Atlantic was the personal journey. The Pacific became the environmental journey. It would be really cool if the Indian was the spiritual journey – but you can never tell in advance!

Why do you think adventure and activism go hand in hand?

My rowing adventures make a great metaphor for how we can tackle our environmental challenges. There are probably times when we all wonder what we can do to make a difference, and feel that our individual actions are just a tiny drop in a very big ocean. But rowing an ocean demonstrates that a million (literally!) tiny actions add up to something really significant. We can achieve almost anything, if we just take it one oarstroke at a time.

How do you inspire other women to pursue their passions?

I hope it’s not just women I inspire! But seriously, I used to seriously limit myself by not believing I could have an adventure. I’m short (five-foot-four on a good day) and not very athletic, and not all that young any more (43). Then I read about a woman, about my size, who had continued to row alone across the Atlantic after her big, strapping, six-foot-five husband completely crumbled mentally, and had to be taken off their boat for his own good. It made me realize that it’s more about the strength of your spirit than the strength of your muscles.

If you could encourage people to do just one thing to make this world a better place, what would it be?

I would ask them to never again use a single-use plastic item. Plastic bags, water bottles, drinking straws, plastic silverware…. it’s so easy to carry your own. It simply makes no sense to make “disposable” items, with a useful life of about 20 minutes, out of an indestructible substance that is with us for decades. And once you get that whole concept, that on a finite Earth, when you throw something “away” it doesn’t really go away, it starts to make you so much more conscious of where things come from, and where they go to. And once you get THAT, you don’t have much choice but to be much more mindful about your actions. Every time we buy something, or throw something “away”, or choose how to get from A to B, we are casting a vote for the kind of future that we want. Every action counts!

For weeks (okay months), I’ve watched Andy Maser of EP Films throw everything he had into a 22-minute long film about salmon. Sure, salmon are cold, slimy creatures that many people go through a day without thinking about. But on Wednesday night here in Portland, I watched 150+ people packed into Keen Footwear‘s great room completely transfixed by these fish and the journey they make and the battle they fight to survive. The real film premiere will happen in January at the Wild & Scenic Film Festival, but the trailer will give you a good idea on why it’s so awesome.

I’ve watched that salmon film dozens of times and every time I get chills when I see those fish throw everything they have into clearing the next waterfall (or dam) on their migration home and my heart beats faster when I hear Horace, a tribal elder, of the Nez Perce Tribe talk about salmon, and that “You can hear them coming.”

For just being a fish, they are everything to the Pacific Northwest. We are inextricably linked to salmon. Our culture, our heritage, our economy and our environment. And we’re letting them go extinct. A woman asked last night if we can actually do anything about that. Of course we can. Sure, the fate of wild salmon is just one issue in a mountain of other national and world problems. But the second we decide to give up, is the second that we stop living. Even if you don’t care about salmon. Care about something. Tell your neighbor, tell your friend and for goodness sake scream and shout at your elected leaders until they listen…

I’m writing this on Thursday night after watching several films on tour with the Wild & Scenic Film Festival. I watched professional skiers and snowboarders talk about how climate change is affecting their snow and what they’ve done in their daily lives to fight for what they have left, I watched a little kid so in awe of millions of lady bugs crawling all over a log and climbing onto his pudgy, little fingers, and I watched a diverse crew of young folks blazing a trail to a food revolution that I hope and pray takes over this country like wildfire.

“It takes a very strong mind to stop doing things the way their parents and grandparents did it… There’s no money in that, even though there’s salvation in that.” Michael Pollan said in the film The Greenhorns.

So can we do it? Well, we sure as hell have to try. Today, do something. Fight for something as if your life depended on it — even if that’s just telling someone the story of the salmon or riding your bike to the grocery store. Because at the end of the day, it’s those very actions that will change the world — and save it.

And if you feel like giving up, just remember those salmon. Humans have thrown every obstacle in their way and they are fighting back so hard to survive. Watching a female salmon at the end of her journey high in the mountains of Idaho use her last ounce of strength, knocking the flesh off of her own body to build a nest for her babies has taught me one thing, if nothing else… Fight. Give it everything you have. They sure are. Out of respect, we should be doing the same. For the salmon, for the earth and for ourselves.

PHOTOS: Neil Ever Osborne, iLCP

While we firmly believe that we all should take action each and every day, sometimes it’s nice to come together with folks in your community for a good ol’ fashioned work party. So, the Under Solen crew joined up with Save Our Wild Salmon here in PDX and restored a portion of Johnson Creek — home to a population of endangered Columbia River Basin steelhead. Sometimes you’ve got to get your hands dirty because making the world a better place is über hawt. Just take a look at Anna getting her good deed on!

Airsick: An Industrial Devolution achieves exactly what it sets out to do: It makes you think, and hopefully inspires you to act. What is clarion in the film is that to stop this threat, as humans, we will have to take a look at ourselves and understand that the actions we take every day have a global effect — and then turn that into positive change.

Thanks to Jenny Nichols of the International League of Conservation Photographers for tuning us in to this film.

James Balog of the Extreme Ice Survey will speak next Friday at The Conservation Alliance's breakfast in Salt Lake City. The Extreme Ice Survey is the most wide-ranging glacier study ever conducted using ground-based, real-time photography.

This week at Under Solen, we’ve been gearing up for next week’s Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake City. While all of our heads will be swimming with meetings, happy hours and gear, we’re hoping to keep our eye on the the thread that holds all of this together — protecting those incredible wild places that keep our industry alive and kicking.

So, we thought we’d give a shout-out to a couple great groups that are walking the walk this week.

The Conservation Alliance

Since thier founding in 1989, the Conservation Alliance has contributed more than $7 million to conservation projects throughout North America — protecting more than 49 million acres of land, stop or remove 27 dams, and preserve access to thousands of miles of rivers and several climbing areas. The Alliance is a group of outdoor industry companies that disburses its collective annual membership dues to grassroots environmental organizations to protect threatened wild habitat, preferably where outdoor enthusiasts recreate. The Alliance was founded in 1989 by industry leaders REI, Patagonia, The North Face, and Kelty, who shared the goal of increasing outdoor industry support for conservation efforts.

Mark your calendars for their awesome breakfast at 7a.m. on Friday at the Marriot. We know it’s early, but this will give you the inspiration you need to get revved up for a day at the show. Look forward to founder and director of The Extreme Ice Survey, James Balog to give a stunning look at the impact abrupt climate change is having on the world’s glaciers.

And make sure to stop by participating booths to support the Alliance! Whether you’re looking for some wild inspiration, a rockin’ party or some sweet gear that benefits a great cause – they have packed line-up.

The Epicocity Project and iLCP Flathead RAVE

Grizzly bear captured on film by iLCP photographer Joe Riis ©iLCP Flathead RAVE

The Epicocity Project’s thought-provoking new film — Flathead Wild — will premiere at the Wild & Scenic Film Festival at the Nevada Theater in Nevada City, Calif. Saturday, Jan. 16 before going on tour.

Proposed mountaintop removal mining in southeastern British Columbia, Canada is threatening one of America’s most endangered rivers and one of North America’s wildest remaining valley — The Flathead. Flathead Wild follows the International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP) as they descend on the Flathead River Valley, along with local conservation groups, to take breathtaking and iconic images of the threatened ecosystem. These images then act as tools for the Flathead coalition to help tip the scales in favor of protection and conservation.

Flathead Wild is also now available online. Help Epicocity spread the word by linking to the film on your blog, Facebook and Twitter and send it to your friends and family!

[vimeo=http://vimeo.com/7775085]

Helping Haiti

And we wanted to once again highlight how we can help folks in Haiti. Earlier this week, an earthquake registering 7.0 on the Richter scale hit Haiti. Centered just outside of the populated capital, Port-au-Prince, the quake’s effects have been devastating. Within less than 24 hours the outpouring of international support has been impressive.

So how can you take part? Here’s just a small collection of what’s out there.

Last week we wrote about Copenhagen’s commitment to providing bikes for conference delegates to ride. But it’s not just the UN conference that’s making the city embrace cycling, bike culture has been a big deal in the Danish capital for quite some time now. Danes believe in the power of cycling so much, that the city of Copenhagen wants 50% of the population to be commuting by bike in the metropolitan area by 2015. That would be a 40% increase from today’s numbers.

What’s the environmental impact of commuting by bike? In the U.S. alone, we could save 462 million gallons of gas a year by increasing the number of bicycle trips by just half a percentage point: from 1% to 1.5% of all trips.

But back to Copenhagen. How exactly do you inspire a whole city to commit to two wheels? Come up with a sleek design for bike share cycles, providing everyone in the city with access to two wheeled adventures. Earlier this year there was a contest to do just that, and this week the winner was announced. The winning designs — called My Loop and Open Bike — are so cool, we figured we’d feature them here to give you a visual of what cycling in Copenhagen will look like in the very near future.

Images via: Below the Clouds (our favorite Swedish design blog!!)

As the world gathers in Copenhagen for the UN Climate Change Conference, we’re following along by covering all sorts of aspects of the issue and the conference. You can read all of our climate related posts here.

Copenhagen has turned chaotic as 130 developing countries have pulled the “emergency plug” on the international climate talks.

Here is the official statement of Jeremy Hobbs, Executive Director of Oxfam:

Africa has pulled the emergency cord to avoid a train crash at the end of the week. Poor countries want to see an outcome which guarantees sharp emissions reductions yet rich countries are trying to delay discussions on the only mechanism we have to deliver this – the Kyoto Protocol.

This not about blocking the talks – it is about whether rich countries are ready to guarantee action on climate change and the survival or people in Africa and across the world.

“Australia and Japan are crying foul while blocking movement on legally binding emissions reductions for rich countries. This tit for tat approach is no way to deal with the climate crisis.”

African countries have refused to continue negotiations unless talks on a second commitment period to the Kyoto Protocol are prioritized ahead of broader discussions under a second LCA track. Australia, Japan and others have succeeded in stopping Kyoto Protocol discussions as a result. Of the two tracks of negotiations underway in Copenhagen the Kyoto Protocol is the only one which includes a mechanism for legally binding emissions reductions by rich countries.

So what does it all mean? Developing countries don’t want to be walked all over by the wealthy ones, particularly since it’s often smaller, poorer countries that feel the severe effects of climate change. You can read a statement regarding climate change by the G77 here.

You can also keep up to date with the breaking news over at Huffington Post.

As the world gathers in Copenhagen for the UN Climate Change Conference, we’re following along by covering all sorts of aspects of the issue. You can read all of our climate related posts here.

Denmark is the country on everybody’s mind these days, but another Scandinavian powerhouse just joined the list for taking climate change action. Sweden announced this week that it would provide the European Union with 8 billion kronor ($1.12 billion) to help developing countries deal with the effects of climate change.

Europe as a whole will be taking steps to support developing countries in fighting climate change; the EU has pledged a total of €2 billion ($2.94 billion) annual endowment to help these places.

Sweden isn’t only investing money in supporting other countries, domestically the government has applied an equally progressive policy, pledging five billion kronor ($7o5 million) in reducing climate impact and adaptation to climate change between 2009 and 2011.

We applaud our Scandinavian friends for their efforts!

As the world gathers in Copenhagen for the UN Climate Change Conference, we’re following along by covering all sorts of aspects of the issue. You can read all of our climate related posts here.

Yesterday we found out that “The 00s” have been the hottest decade on record and the U.S. and several other wealthy countries were caught drafting secret a climate proposal in Copehagen. After such depressing news, we decided a more uplifting post was in order.

Enter the bicycle. Living in Portland, we’re immersed in the wonder of bicycling every day. Even with the ridiculously cold weather we’ve been having, there’s no doubt Portlanders know biking is the way to go. And we’re glad to see that delegates in Copenhagen are embracing the CO2-neutral way to get around as well.

From The COP 15 Blog:

The temperature in Copenhagen is just above freezing point, yet most of the 200 free bicycles parked outside the Bella Center are already rented out.

“We want to give delegates the chance to experience the Danish way of riding bikes no matter what the weather conditions are. Actually, delegates are very happy to take the bikes to their hotels and to meetings in the city,” says Henrik Smedegaard Mortensen from Bicikeli.

Bicikeli is an initiative to lower CO2 emissions in Denmark and create access to healthcare in Africa. The organisation has provided 160 free bicycles for COP15.

After the conference the bicycles will be re-fitted with trailers and sent to Tanzania where they can be used to transport patients to health care centers.

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The U.S. – 20% of emissions, 30% of G.D.P. 5% of people.

Per capita, the U.S. emits 19.5 metric tons of CO2. The world average? 4.5.

European Union – 15% of emissions, 25% of G.D.P., 8% of people

Annex 1 countries – 51% of emissions, 75% of GDP, 19% of people

These are the developed countries required under the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 to reduce emissions. If you remember, the U.S. refused to ratify the treaty.

Small island states -1% of emissions, 1% of GDP, 1% of people

Although these places are responsible for a very little percentage of carbon emissions, the 39-member Association of Small Island States is perhaps the most at risk because of climate change. With just minor rises in sea levels, provoked by climate change, many of the islands would become uninhabitable.

No matter what numbers you look at, it’s clear that we’re ALL affected by climate change, necessitating a progressive plan of action.