Activities like hiking and biking are healthy and don't produce a lot of excess CO2. Doing these things locally is even better. So here are some websites to help you find great places to be outside.

Nature_Find
This is the National Wildlife Federation's map-based tool.

Local_Hikes
Solid information about specific trails so you can plan for a day outdoors.

Trails.com
A tool that allows you to browse and sort a good number of hiking, biking, and kayaking trails. Unfortunately, you have to pay for the slick presentation and database of hikes.

The_Nature_Conservancy
Lists hundreds of preserves in the U.S. and around the world.

The_Sierra_Club
A user-generated database of hikes and outdoor experiences.

Land_Trust_Alliance
A database of local land trusts, not established parks or trails. However, these spaces may be available for your exploration. You will have to check with informational links before proceeding to visit these spaces, there may be rules or the trust may be private.

Rather than paraphrase an entire article, this is the first segment:

As the U.S. energy industry inches away from reliance on fossil fuels, experts have heralded various greener technologies, such as ethanol, solar and geothermal power, as choice alternatives. And while each of those alternatives holds marked environmental advantages over dirty oil and coal, none match wind power's squeaky clean performance.

"Based on the review looking at the major energy technologies and environmental impact, wind came out on top," said Mark Z. Jacobson, an engineer at Stanford University.

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_85 days, 16 hours and roughly 25 minutes: Number of days that oil gushed into the Gulf.

_184 million: Estimated number of gallons of oil released into the Gulf of Mexico since April 20.

_572: Miles of Gulf Coast shoreline currently oiled.

_2,700 square miles: Size of the visible slick of surface oil

_83,927 square miles: Size of the area still closed to fishing.

_31.8 million gallons: Amount of oil-water mix recovered.

_1.82 million gallons: Amount of dispersant chemicals applied to help break up the oil.

_$336 million: Current market value of the spilled oil.

_$3.5 billion: Amount that BP PLC has spent on the response.

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Sources: AP reporting; National Incident Command; SEC filings.

As of yesterday, the oil has stopped. For now. After 85 days and up to 184 million gallons, BP finally gained control over one of America's biggest environmental catastrophes Thursday by placing a carefully fitted cap over a runaway geyser that has been gushing crude into the Gulf of Mexico since early spring.

Now if it holds, we only have to worry about the remaining clean up. This will have long term impacts on the surrounding areas that make up the Gulf of Mexico. I hope that the effort is high to clean everything up or the clean up could last years. We need to continue to watch this and make sure BP knows we're watching or the effort will fizzle out. We tend to forget too quickly how bad a situation is once a fix is recognized.

Keep your eye on this one.

Hydrofluorocarbons are the chemicals that currently make the air conditioner in your car or the cooling system in your refrigerator work. These chemicals are perfectly safe in the captive environment of the equipment they operate in, however, conditions change and they escape. Cars get in accidents, and refrigerators go without maintenance too many years causing the the seals to dry out. Dry seals lead to escaped gases or chemicals.

We have very good control of these issues since the 1970s. The thing is, this new process could be cheaper and safer. The effect has already been recorded so the race is on to make it work in real world situations.

What we are talking about is a property of some substances to lose heat when they are exposed to changing magnetic fields. The process of this is called the magnetocaloric effect. Calories are a measure of heat, so the name literally means magnetic heat effect. Any time you have an exchange of heat, one material has a temperature drop while the other has a gain. Refrigeration and heating systems are all about controlling this process.

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