Flying is Believing

It's hard to understand the magnitude of environmental degradation in America without seeing it firsthand. After all, looking at images on television or in newspapers doesn't carry the same weight as seeing something with one's own eyes.

That's where Bruce Gordon comes in. According to a story in The Daily Climate, 64-year-old Gordon has been giving guided nature tours in his Cessna airplane for 20 years now. And since 2002, the pilot's been running EcoFlight, a Colorado-based nonprofit that aims to educate people about environmental destruction in the West through plane flights. Dubbed "conservation flying," Gordon has exposed countless politicians, journalists and everyday people to the massive environmental problems our country is currently facing.

Through his flights, Gordon gives folks a birds-eye view of roads, drilling pads, smoke plumes from coal-fired power plants, clear-cut forests, open-pit gold mines and melting glaciers, among other environmental ills. The perspective from such an altitude provides people with a better understanding of just how much environmentally degrading projects and climate change are altering the West's landscape. "You can see 12 [gas] rigs from Interstate 70," Gordon told The Daily Climate. "You can see 2,000 from up there."

But Gordon doesn't aim to depress. Rather, the pilot wants to inform people about what's really going on and inspire them to action. After all, recognizing the West's environmental problems is the first step towards fixing them.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.