Are climbers hypocrites?

It's a tough world not to be a hypocrite.

Climbing is relatively low impact compared to many outdoor sports. Climbing trails are often glorified game trails. If you took your average hiker on many of the access trails we use, they would chalk that up as an adventurous day.

If I lived within a short biking distance to high quality climbing though, I would piss righteousness all over this thread.

FrankPS wrote: The end is near?

According to the rabid liberals after Trump it is, apparently he has already ruined America without even taking office yet. I'm with Mike, be selfish and hypocritical, enjoy life before you end up working in a factory for 5 dollars a day.

Mike Lane wrote:The reason y'all can waste vast amounts of time climbing and whatever else you choose for recreation is because of all the energy and industrial development mankind has created the past 150 or so years; eliminating the need to farm and hunt your own food, chop your own wood, build your own house, sew your own clothes, feed and shelter your own horses, so on and on. Economic development and wealth creation is what keeps population in check, poverty is what blows it up. Soon enough very hard times will return, they always do. Climbing will then only be a warm memory of back when things were good. I'd suggest enjoying the life while you can.

I disagree. Climbing will be very useful in the zombie apocalypse.

Tradster wrote: I spent 45 minutes sneaking up on him with a HK91 rifle and got behind him and told him if he turned around with the shotgun in his hand that I'd flat out kill him.

This is.... just inconceivable to me. You start a conversation about hypocrisy in environmentalists, and casually drop in that you are prepared to get into a kill or be killed situation over.. what, trespassing?

I'm sure not going to get into an argument with you...

Alex Rogers wrote: This is.... just inconceivable to me. You start a conversation about hypocrisy in environmentalists, and casually drop in that you are prepared to get into a kill or be killed situation over.. what, trespassing? I'm sure not going to get into an argument with you...

Maybe you should re-read the post. The guy was trespassing with a shotgun when kids are potentially running around playing in the woods. I asked him to leave and he basically told me, the legitimate landowner, to fuck off and he'd damn well do what he wanted to do regardless of me asking him to leave. I had the drop on him anyway, and gave him notice to drop the weapon. Had he turned around with it in his hand still, well at that point I'm not playing any guessing games with the dude. The comment was in response to another post about slob hunters coming on someone else's land and trespassing and mucking up his property, and I'm very sympathetic towards how the poster was feeling about these types of slob hunters.

I'll make it really clear: someone trespasses on my property with gun in their hand and if I feel threatened, which I certainly did, then that isn't some simple little argument, as you seem to imply. It's about trespassing on my property with a fucking weapon. Can you see the difference? No, at that point, I won't call the cops, I simply deal with the issue myself. Sorry, but that's just the way I see things. You go ahead and call 911and then wait 30-40 minutes and maybe the fuzz will show, maybe not in time, too. And if I didn't do anything and the cops showed later he'd just beat feet out the back forty and come back another time, trespassing with his firearm again. Sorry dude, but sometimes you got to handle the shit storm yourself.

You handle an armed trespasser your way and I handle it my way. By the way, we never had another trespasser after that and we'd been dealing with these types of douchebags many times prior to that incident. Word got around I'm sure after he went to grey bar hotel for the night and paid a hefty fine. After a while just maybe, even you just might get pissed enough to handle the problem yourself.

You didn't read the original post well anyway, as the original post was not even about environmentalists, it was about climbers and their lifestyle and how it affects the environment. Perhaps the difference was too subtle for you to grasp.

Anyway, cheers for the season.

Tradster wrote: Maybe you should re-read the post. The guy was trespassing with a shotgun when kids are potentially running around playing in the woods. I asked him to leave and he basically told me, the legitimate landowner, to fuck off and he'd damn well do what he wanted to do regardless of me asking him to leave. I had the drop on him anyway, and gave him notice to drop the weapon. Had he turned around with it in his hand still, well at that point I'm not playing any guessing games with the dude. The comment was in response to another post about slob hunters coming on someone else's land and trespassing and mucking up his property, and I'm very sympathetic towards how the poster was feeling about these types of slob hunters. I'll make it really clear: someone trespasses on my property with gun in their hand and if I feel threatened, which I certainly did, then that isn't some simple little argument, as you seem to imply. It's about trespassing on my property with a fucking weapon. Can you see the difference? No, at that point, I won't call the cops, I simply deal with the issue myself. Sorry, but that's just the way I see things. You go ahead and call 911and then wait 30-40 minutes and maybe the fuzz will show, maybe not in time, too. And if I didn't do anything and the cops showed later he'd just beat feet out the back forty and come back another time, trespassing with his firearm again. Sorry dude, but sometimes you got to handle the shit storm yourself. You handle an armed trespasser your way and I handle it my way. By the way, we never had another trespasser after that and we'd been dealing with these types of douchebags many times prior to that incident. Word got around I'm sure after he went to grey bar hotel for the night and paid a hefty fine. After a while just maybe, even you just might get pissed enough to handle the problem yourself. You didn't read the original post well anyway, as the original post was not even about environmentalists, it was about climbers their lifestyle and how it affects the environment. Perhaps the difference was too subtle for you to grasp. Anyway, cheers for the season.

If this happened the way you say it did...I support your actions 100%. You come onto my property, armed, and tell me you won't leave? More than just a trespasser - he's an armed intruder, especially after he refused to leave. Glad it worked out well for you, Tradster.

Aleks Zebastian wrote:climbing friend,...the donald trump appoint man to head EPA who sued the EPA for trying to protect the environment...

I gather that the spin so far from the incoming Trump administration (which may or may end up reflecting the reality) regarding the nomination is that, assuming

a)Some of the EPA's regulations are designed to make it more economically feasible to import oil as opposed to produce it domestically. Given some of the Clinton foundation ties, this does not sound like an unreasonable assumption.

b)Under reasonable EPA guidelines meant to protect water and other natural resources we depend on, using the oil in the U.S. will reduce the overall carbon footprint from the oil we use compared with other sources.

then what what Scott Pruitt is going to do is clean up the regulations at the EPA in order to create jobs here, and for the interim reduce the overall carbon footprint from petroleum. I for one hope this is the case, and further hope that ExxonMobil uses this opportunity in addition to its financial reserves to begin investing in more sustainable forms of energy.

While I believe there is no getting around having to adapt to a lifestyle where we depend on significantly less energy, I think that the best way this is accomplished overall is by localizing production of goods, thus decentralizing a lot of power as well as eliminating unnecessary global trade which only serves to control prices.

Another thing worth noting is that one really big difference between now and when dinosaurs were around was the regeneration rate of the plant life. Thus something which I bet is both a real phenomenon and not something the models take into account is how much actual energy will be able to be consumed by plant life and turned both directly and indirectly (through natural sources like hunting as well as sustainable free-range meat in otherwise unproductive pastures) into food for our growing population. Add a solid dose of education all around, a willingness on the part of westerners to eat bugs, and you can quickly get some reasons for hope. Don't be sad Aleks :)

On the topic of the thread, I think one of the best things we can all strive for is the ability to grow at least some of our own food. Mushrooms and bugs are forward thinking ideas for dense population areas.

^^^^^^^^^

OG nihilist

From the above link:

Nihilist

Gorgias has been labelled "The Nihilist"[4][5][6][13][14] because some scholars have interpreted his thesis on "the non-existent" to be an argument against the existence of anything that is straightforwardly endorsed by Gorgias himself.[15] Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is associated with pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence.[16] Gorgias presents an argument that nothing at all exists in his On Non-Existence, where he develops three sequential arguments: first, that nothing exists, second, that even if existence exists, it is inapprehensible to humans, and third, that even if existence is apprehensible, it certainly cannot be communicated or interpreted to one’s neighbors. That being said, there is consensus in late 20th century and early 21st century scholarship that the label 'nihilist' is misleading, in part because if his argument were genuinely meant to support nihilism it would be self-undermining (the argument, of course, is something and has pretensions to communicate knowledge, in conflict with its explicit pronouncement that there is nothing and that it can't be known or communicated). Gisela Striker says: "I find it hard to believe that anyone should ever have thought that Gorgias seriously advocated the view that nothing is and that he was, therefore, a 'nihilist.'[17] Similarly Caston: "Gorgias would have to be not merely disconsolate, but quite dull-witted, to have missed the conflict between his presentation and its content"[18] and Wardy "This sadly mistaken reading overlooks the most obvious consequence of Gorgias' paradoxologia (παραδοξολογία): his message refutes itself, and in consequence, so far from constituting a theory of logos, it confronts us with a picture of what language cannot be, with what it cannot be assumed to aspire to be."[19] Gigon and Newiger make similar points.[20][21] Assuming that it was at one time a written text, there is no evidence of what Gorgias originally wrote. What we know is from commentary by Sextus Empiricus and Pseudo-Aristotle’s De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia.[22]

Also:
Gorgias was a Sicilian philosopher, orator, and rhetorician. He is considered by many scholars to be one of the founders of sophism, a movement traditionally associated with philosophy, that emphasizes the practical application of rhetoric toward civic and political life. The sophists were itinerant teachers who accepted fees in return for instruction in oratory and rhetoric, and many claimed they could teach anything and its opposite (thesis and antithesis). Another aspect of their method was the ability to make the weaker argument the stronger. The term sophist in classical Greek was a general appellation denoting a "wise man." They were important figures in Greece in the 4th and 5th centuries, and their social success was great. Plato was the first to use the term rhêtorikê, while the sophists termed their "art" logos . Nevertheless, Gorgias is commonly associated with the development of rhetoric in classical Greece. The democratic process in Athens supplied the need for instruction in both rhetoric and philosophy.

Mike Lane:

Very existential...sounds like Camus or Sartre. It sure made me laugh.

I love these threads where people keep typing their responses like the mic is broken. And by "love" I mean I want to pee in their ear.

The fossil fuel impact related to driving to crags is pretty significant. Walking around in the woods and on cliff tops is not that bad.

JNE wrote: Using this source, which is heavily biased against Trump, I gather that the spin so far from the incoming Trump administration (which may or may end up reflecting the reality) regarding the nomination is that, assuming a)Some of the EPA's regulations are designed to make it more economically feasible to import oil as opposed to produce it domestically. Given some of the Clinton foundation ties, this does not sound like an unreasonable assumption. b)Under reasonable EPA guidelines meant to protect water and other natural resources we depend on, using the oil in the U.S. will reduce the overall carbon footprint from the oil we use compared with other sources. then what what Scott Pruitt is going to do is clean up the regulations at the EPA in order to create jobs here, and for the interim reduce the overall carbon footprint from petroleum. I for one hope this is the case, and further hope that ExxonMobil uses this opportunity in addition to its financial reserves to begin investing in more sustainable forms of energy. While I believe there is no getting around having to adapt to a lifestyle where we depend on significantly less energy, I think that the best way this is accomplished overall is by localizing production of goods, thus decentralizing a lot of power as well as eliminating unnecessary global trade which only serves to control prices. Another thing worth noting is that one really big difference between now and when dinosaurs were around was the regeneration rate of the plant life. Thus something which I bet is both a real phenomenon and not something the models take into account is how much actual energy will be able to be consumed by plant life and turned both directly and indirectly (through natural sources like hunting as well as sustainable free-range meat in otherwise unproductive pastures) into food for our growing population. Add a solid dose of education all around, a willingness on the part of westerners to eat bugs, and you can quickly get some reasons for hope. Don't be sad Aleks :) On the topic of the thread, I think one of the best things we can all strive for is the ability to grow at least some of our own food. Mushrooms and bugs are forward thinking ideas for dense population areas.

climbing friend,

um, sorry, you are no.

fat no talent ass clown scott pruitt he is not going to "clean up the regulations" to "create jobs here" and utilize the domestic oil to "reduce the overall carbon footprint from petroleum."

The Pruitt lawsuit vs. the EPA it twas about fighting rules on the naughty naughty domstic emissions of the oil and gas industry in your overweight country, the U.S. It's to get your rich industry friends more rich more easily and more quickly and benefit yourself politically as result, not to import less oil and create jobs and reduce overall emissions...

Pruitt is an ally of the industry fossil fuel, and has stated it's up for the debate whether the human caused climate change is real, yes, while the overwhelming majority of the climate scientists have found that it is real and it is human caused, myah.

so no, he is not going to do anything to improve the country or the EPA, only open the doors for polluting industries to enrichen themselves at the cost of your environment and enrichening himself and benefit himself in the politic as result of helping his industry friend get richer, while shtomping on your back, and how you say saying, "make it rain, bitches!!!"

I am quite sad in my heart for you. What is it making you saay major newspaper reporting facts is biased against trump? That an orange sexually assaulting orangutang goes on TV and whines enough times about biased media you decide it is true?

all your flash are belong to me.

Tradster wrote:How many of us drive a nice SUV or pickup? How many are 4X4? What mileage are you sporting on that set of wheels? Compare that to a Prius, or Fiat 500, or some other good mileage vehicle? Speaking of vehicles, how much mileage are you racking up every year to get to the crags, mountains, whatever? Have you flown to a climbing destination? That consumes plenty of gas.

I notice 99% of climbers drive high gas consuming SUVs, trucks, and vans. I drive a small gas economical car though, and it doesn't seem very "climber-like".

Kevin MP wrote: This. Also, what's one of the worst things we can do for the environment? Create more humans to continue to fuck it up. I would venture that the average climber has significantly fewer offspring than the general population and thus less impact.

I agree with you on both sentiments. 10 "environmentally conscious" people make a bigger impact than 1 "wasteful" person (and then those 10 people create more people than 1-2 people can create).
I also notice many climbers I know do have fewer offspring, because they have things to do, routes to climb, and don't need to clone themselves to have something to do. For example I haven't reproduced. Then again, other than climbing I also have a high stress job and a post-grad degree, and women who have post-grad degrees typically have fewer children also.

BrianWS wrote:Short answer: Yes. Most liberal eco-concerned types rarely go beyond superficial efforts (diet, car choice, carbon offsets, bumper stickers, etc.) and rhetoric to reduce their middle/upper middle class impact on the environment. This is not limited to climbers, but most climbers (over generalization, yes) fit into the same demographic.

Agree. Thoughts are meaningless unless turned to true action.

caesar.salad wrote:Humans damage the environment. Fewer humans means less negative impact on the environment. Ergo, to save the world, kill yourself?

Now that's just rude. All a person has to do is not reproduce to end the cycle naturally (little difference if the 1 person dies in 1 year or 10, as long as there are no further perpetuating generations), no reason to kill themselves as they are already here having had no choice in the matter.

The "I don't plan on reproducing therefore I have a lower impact" argument is bunk. The fact that you would even consider this implies that you are the very kind of person who SHOULD be reproducing. What the world needs less of is selfish, non-reflective people who say "the science just isn't in" and use this as an excuse to live extremely wasteful, damaging lives. Unfortunately, these people are content to f$&@ like rabbits.

Ted Pinson wrote:The "I don't plan on reproducing therefore I have a lower impact" argument is bunk. The fact that you would even consider this implies that you are the very kind of person who SHOULD be reproducing. What the world needs less of is selfish, non-reflective people who say "the science just isn't in" and use this as an excuse to live extremely wasteful, damaging lives. Unfortunately, these people are content to f$&@ like rabbits.

So nice of you. If I do end up having kids I'll heavily encourage them to become environmental engineers or astrophysicists.

I realize zero impact is not the realistic goal, and progress is necessary and not a bad thing.

The Industrial Revolution of the 1800s began the era of technology acceleration, but was also a time of waste and destruction. Humans noticed their impact of resource depletion & pollution and backpedaled with Laws (protecting endangered species, prohibiting dumping of toxic chemicals, protecting areas of land) and Technology (developing cleaner energy, recycling.... bringing extinct animals to life). So to get better, we had to get worse.

The Earth is not going to be around forever- it has 7 billion years max at which time the Sun will swell into a Red Giant. Living like Native Americans and having all the pristine rivers, forests, and animals in the world will not save it/us. The glimmer of hope is if our technology is advanced enough to get us elsewhere (a la Noah's Ark). The goal is to keep the Earth habitable long enough to develop a solution. If we destroy it within 1,000 years as Stephen Hawking predicts, then there is no chance.

Contemplating the Red Giant is thinking very far ahead, and with an "expanding Universe" where everything is already millions of light years away and getting further rapidly, we likely have no chance. So maybe we SHOULD live it up before we all perish in a fiery end.

Which brings me to my other rationale for not having children: to not create any descendants who will have to suffer through the apocalypse, whatever form it may come in.

This basically has nothing to do with climbing.

Lol that ship sailed a long time ago. I count it as a win if we get to page 2 and are still talking about climbing.

Ted Pinson wrote:The "I don't plan on reproducing therefore I have a lower impact" argument is bunk. The fact that you would even consider this implies that you are the very kind of person who SHOULD be reproducing. What the world needs less of is selfish, non-reflective people who say "the science just isn't in" and use this as an excuse to live extremely wasteful, damaging lives. Unfortunately, these people are content to f$&@ like rabbits.

If only this were true.

Thankfully, parent's have no guarantee that their kids will accept their values or follow any particular path. Kids are free to be their own persons.

Even if that weren't so, creating more offspring who want to protect the environment doesn't mean that there will be fewer offspring who don't. Your selfish people will likely just keep on f$&@ like rabbits.

I like this one from Mr. Aldo

Man always kills the thing he loves, and so we the pioneers have killed our wilderness. Some say we had to. Be that as it may, I am glad I shall never be young without wild country to be young in. Of what avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?”

Aleks Zebastian wrote: climbing friend, um, sorry, you are no. fat no talent ass clown scott pruitt he is not going to "clean up the regulations" to "create jobs here" and utilize the domestic oil to "reduce the overall carbon footprint from petroleum." The Pruitt lawsuit vs. the EPA it twas about fighting rules on the naughty naughty domstic emissions of the oil and gas industry in your overweight country, the U.S. It's to get your rich industry friends more rich more easily and more quickly and benefit yourself politically as result, not to import less oil and create jobs and reduce overall emissions... Pruitt is an ally of the industry fossil fuel, and has stated it's up for the debate whether the human caused climate change is real, yes, while the overwhelming majority of the climate scientists have found that it is real and it is human caused, myah. so no, he is not going to do anything to improve the country or the EPA, only open the doors for polluting industries to enrichen themselves at the cost of your environment and enrichening himself and benefit himself in the politic as result of helping his industry friend get richer, while shtomping on your back, and how you say saying, "make it rain, bitches!!!" I am quite sad in my heart for you. What is it making you saay major newspaper reporting facts is biased against trump? That an orange sexually assaulting orangutang goes on TV and whines enough times about biased media you decide it is true? all your flash are belong to me.

As I would expect from you, no talk of the two assumptions I posted up. I am an environmentalist and I care about my country and the people in it, so I genuinely care that energy get produced where the production will cause the least environmental impact, and where it will benefit my fellow Americans the most. Come on, don't tell me you think there is an EPA in any Middle Eastern country? Or do those people and places just not matter? Would you rather employ someone from a foreign country rather than an American?