Climbing and the Environment

Brother Numsie wrote: Let me refine your questions for you:

1) Do you agree with the purported theorem that energy useage and industrialization are killing this planet's biosphere?

2a) If so, are you also accepting the reality that the human population must be reduced by, at a minimum,  50% within the next 10 years in order to avoid mass extinctions? Are you willing to vote the Left back into power to meet that goal?

2b) Are you in denial?

Any serious consideration of humanity's impact upon the globe, not just limited to climate change but also with habitat destruction, deadly compound pollution, radiation, ozone depletion; leads inevitably to the conclusion that humanity must end, and quickly.
The only question remains whether we are taking everything else down with us or not.

What bothers me, though, is the Left cynically using this Inconvenient Truth as a mere tool to regain power with the vacuous pretense that taking irrelevant actions will have any impact in regards to the urgency and drastic needs to avoid an epochal catastrophe 

1. No. Life is resilient and adaptable. There's likely no way man could wipe out the biosphere even if he tried. It may just look different and way less diverse than it is now.

2. No. Unrealistic to think someone is going to pull a Thanos. And that's what it would take, mass murder, to remove 50% of the population in 10 years. We already are undergoing mass extinctions unfortunately. The question is how bad they will ultimately end up being. I'd vote the Democrats back into power because currently the Trump administration's EPA is doing the opposite of what it's supposed to do. The Dems are corrupt, power hungry, pay lip service, etc. but the Reps do all that and openly advocate to pollute more and protect less, so they are worse.

2b. No. The questions IMO are how seriously do we want to protect what we have? How much are we going to fight to protect our planet's limited resources against the short term gain of some of the wealthiest people and what are we willing to do to personally reduce our impact?

If humanity ends there's will be no advanced consciousness to appreciate the planet. That would be a shame. The idea that less evolved lifeforms are more worthy of this planet than humans is such a wacko concept and when expressed only provides fuel and ammunition to the right wing wackos who put short term economic gain over quality of life.

Glowering wrote:

. That would be a shame.

Not really

Jim Turner wrote: Nolan, great comments on air travel.  Why do you think there is so much focus in the world on automobile emissions, but virtually zero discussion about air travel? You might be only the second or third person to acknowledge this, over the last 40 years of me listening to and reading about environmentalist arguments.

A few thoughts on this:
- A lot of the laws that now get used to fight greenhouse emissions (e.g. those in California) were created to deal with localized smog, so cars have been a focus for a long time.

- There are no electric airplanes the same way that there are electric cars. Advanced fuels get you maybe 15% emissions reductions, winglets and composite construction get you some more marginal reduction, but at the end of the day only hydrocarbons are energy-dense enough to run jet turbines. People would much rather drive a different car but drive just as much as they used to than adjust their lifestyle to drive/fly/travel less.

- Because of that, your options are basically: get people to fly less through some kind of restrictions (unpopular), or include airlines in an aggressive cap-and-trade scheme (also a big legislative ask). I think airlines are actually a pretty good illustration of why cap and trade is a good idea, because the market mechanism means that hard-to-decarbonize sectors like airlines can buy emission reduction credits from easier-to-decarbonize sectors.

I'm personally on the fence about whether or not I should fly less when, as Lena said, only large-scale regulations are likely to actually reduce air emissions. Right now I don't foresee myself going on overseas climbing trips because of mixed feelings on air travel... but for instance, I'm not going to reject a good job someplace because I'd need to fly home a long ways if I want to visit my family. I drive a Prius and pat myself on the back for it, but also wonder whether having a fuel-efficient car just makes me drive more.

I think the bottom line (as others have said) is that consumer choices matter way less than getting the political will to do real environmental policies. If we do manage to hit mid-century carbon-neutrality goals, it will because people made their democracy take collective/systematic action towards them, not because I chose to bike to work.

We care about the environment, and that’s why we have decided that the best thing we can do is not pollute the planet with any more of our genetic material. Even if our user group quit driving 20mpg trucks everywhere across this planet it wouldn’t even come close to the carbon offset caused by choosing to not have more children.

Harri wrote:1) Do you care about the environment, meaning issues like climate change and biodiversity loss?

Yes.

2a) If you do, does that affect how you practice climbing? Meaning, modes of travel, carbon offsets, buying less gear, and overall thinking and acting upon issues such as chalk usage, vegetation removal, consideration of crag flora and fauna in general, etc.? Please feel free to even share tips on low impact climbing if you wish!

Hardly at all because it doesn't matter.

2b) If you don't think that environmental issues are relevant in climbing, why do you think that?

You've heard of the Pareto Principle, right?  The Pareto principle states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.  The environmental impacts of just living far outweighs the impact of being a climber; being a climber is insignificant in the big picture.   For example, compare the impact of one person being a climber to the same person having a child.  Or the impacts of producing food for that person over his lifetime.  Climbing is insignificant.   QED.

Scott Fagen wrote: We care about the environment, and that’s why we have decided that the best thing we can do is not pollute the planet with any more of our genetic material. Even if our user group quit driving 20mpg trucks everywhere across this planet it wouldn’t even come close to the carbon offset caused by choosing to not have more children.

I respect your choice.

But you have the Idiocracy effect. If everyone environmentally aware stops having kids and others have a bunch then the world will be populated with people who don't care. I'm only partly joking.

I think having one or two kids is fine. Some people won't have kids and if everyone else had two we'd have a population decline. The problem is I see families who have 5 or more kids, and they are often not environmentally concerned. And population growth is large in developing countries where they are also wanting to consume more resources (like us in the developed world).

As I mentioned earlier, we don't know what the future holds. We could figure out an inexpensive carbon sequestration technology. A natural disaster could wipe out humanity. And I'm not going to completely give up one of the most rewarding and biologically/evolutionary driving forces in life for the benefit of other people or animals.

As a Collapsitarian, I am just dying to see large scale regulations get implemented

Eating a plant based (no animal products) diet is the biggest impact a typical individual can make to reduce their environmental impact.

A conservative estimate puts animal agriculture at 14.5% of global GHG emissions, greater than direct transportation emissions (exhaust) globally. This comes from a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Link (report says 18% but this was later amended to 14.5%). There are reasons to believe the share is even higher, for example if you use a longer term GWP (multiplier) for methane rather than the 20-year GWP used in the report.

For someone who flies a lot cutting out flying could make a bigger impact but most people do not fly that much. They are also not mutually exclusive. This calculator seems well sourced and will let you see your carbon footprint and test different lifestyle changes you could make.

Someone considering a plant based diet may be concerned about the health and performance impacts the diet could have. They would be happy to know that a plant based diet is very healthy for you. For example heart disease is the number one cause of death in the USA and globally. A plant based diet reduces risk of heart disease by 40% and can even reverse it. Source.

In terms of performance many athletes are finding a plant based diet improves performance, even NFL football players who need enormous caloric intake and bulk.

I figure if I stick to a high red meat diet then I’ll die younger than most of you, then I’ll be contributing much less to the death and destruction to the planet than an alive person...just doing my part...why would anyone want to live if they can’t enjoy eating the muscle of herbivores?

Another aspect of animal agriculture is that it is the largest driver of deforestation and land change in the world. From the FAO report:

The total area occupied by grazing is equivalent to 26 percent of the ice-free terrestrial surface of the planet. In addition, the total area dedicated to feedcrop production amounts to 33 percent of total arable land. In all, livestock production accounts for 70 percent of all agricultural land and 30 percent of the land surface of the planet.
Expansion of livestock production is a key factor in deforestation, especially in Latin America where the greatest amount of deforestation is occurring – 70 percent of previous forested land in the Amazon is occupied by pastures, and feedcrops cover a large part of the remainder. About 20 percent of the world’s pastures and rangelands, with 73 percent of rangelands in dry areas, have been degraded to some extent, mostly through overgrazing, compaction and erosion created by livestock action. 

Scott Fagen wrote: We care about the environment, and that’s why we have decided that the best thing we can do is not pollute the planet with any more of our genetic material. Even if our user group quit driving 20mpg trucks everywhere across this planet it wouldn’t even come close to the carbon offset caused by choosing to not have more children.

Why not both?

Long Ranger wrote:

Why not both?

What would people think if someone claims to be a climber and they don’t drive a Tacoma, sprinter or Subaru?

Scott Fagen wrote:

What would people think if someone claims to be a climber and they don’t drive a Tacoma, sprinter or Subaru?

Fuck all?

Nolan your points are mostly correct but in my opinion misleading. There is no danger of uninformed activism towards a plant based diet. Even if you are completely lacking in consideration for any of those points you will greatly reduce environmental impact just by switching to a plant based diet. While it is true that one should consider those points, they all apply to an omnivorous diet just the same as a plant based one.

Where your food is grown: how far did it have to be shipped?  

Same for animal based foods and the feed that is given to them while they grow.

on meat: carbon offsets from the crops used to feed livestock usually aren't taken into account for the emissions of meat production, leading to some exaggeration of their impact

The numbers I cited do take those into effect. If you don't take that into effect, you end up with animal agriculture representing over 50% of global GHG emissions. So if you are watching Cowspiracy or someone hits you with the 51% number, bring up this point, but what I discussed already took that into account.

land use suitability: grazing land is not necessarily suitable for crops

This is true but I am not sure why it matters. Especially because overall we would have to grow less crops if we did not feed most of them to livestock animals.

deforestation: internationally, countries are blazing forests to make room for cash crops as plant-based diets become more popular in a few particular nations 

Globally deforestation is mainly done to make room for cattle grazing and for soy crops that are used to feed livestock. It is true that palm oil is also bad for deforestation if that is what you are getting at - but overall switching from meat to palm oil would still be a major win for the environment. Of course it would be best to avoid both!

nuts, for example, use significant amounts of water. One almond takes over a gallon of water to produce. Not a sustainable crop for drought ridden areas like California, the largest almond producer in the United States

Meanwhile one pound of cow meat takes 1800 gallons of water and is typically a larger part of an omnivorous diet than almonds are of a plant based diet.

Nice graphic by the way.

Harri wrote: 1) Do you care about the environment, meaning issues like climate change and biodiversity loss?

Yes, very much so.

2a) If you do, does that affect how you practice climbing? Meaning, modes of travel, carbon offsets, buying less gear, and overall thinking and acting upon issues such as chalk usage, vegetation removal, consideration of crag flora and fauna in general, etc.? Please feel free to even share tips on low impact climbing if you wish!

Yes thinking about issues. Yes being cautious to minimize impact when at crag. No, nothing very progressive like limiting modes of travel or buying less gear. I do pay a premium on my energy bill to use only renewable sources, but I would do that regardless of climbing. I am patently aware of the hypocrisy of being had that someone left a 3 square cm piece of plastic at a climbing area when I burned 5-10 gallons of gasoline to get to/from.

Harri wrote: Hi,

1) Do you care about the environment, meaning issues like climate change and biodiversity loss?

2a) If you do, does that affect how you practice climbing? Meaning, modes of travel, carbon offsets, buying less gear, and overall thinking and acting upon issues such as chalk usage, vegetation removal, consideration of crag flora and fauna in general, etc.? Please feel free to even share tips on low impact climbing if you wish!

2b) If you don't think that environmental issues are relevant in climbing, why do you think that?

1) Yes, I am especially concerned RE: loss of biodiversity. 

2a) I purchase carbon offset whenever I fly, vegetarian diet, chose not to have children. Clean up trash when I see it at the crag. Refuse to buy a gas guzzling 4x4 (even though it would be convenient sometimes), car pool to the crag when possible. 

Don't care.

Not changing.

Because it doesn't. 

I’m not an expert on climbing or the environment, but my guess is the amount of change you are capable of making solely through lifestyle choices (e.g. type of food you eat, car you drive) is directly proportionate to how much your opinion can change the politics of the country you live in...maybe every one else on MP.com is a billionaire and I just didn’t realize it??? Or more likely we all have yet to fully grasp how insignificant one person is?

Harri wrote: Hi,

I have a couple of questions on climbing and the environment. Hugely appreciative if anyone cares to chime in! The questions below, and the background to why I'm asking, below them.

1) Do you care about the environment, meaning issues like climate change and biodiversity loss?

Yes, a lot. I try to minimize my personal impact where I can - mimize packaging used, food miles, activities & practice/how I practice them, what I eat, what type of product/service I choose to encourage by buying, etc.

2a) If you do, does that affect how you practice climbing? Meaning, modes of travel, carbon offsets, buying less gear, and overall thinking and acting upon issues such as chalk usage, vegetation removal, consideration of crag flora and fauna in general, etc.? Please feel free to even share tips on low impact climbing if you wish!

Yes, but not very differently from how that affects the rest of my life. I run commute to most places in town (including work) the vast majority of the time. Things like groceries... and climbing I use the car more. But we have 1 car for the 2 us. I favor minimizing my impact (trash etc...) while climbing but that's also the case everywhere else. All in all, climbing can be a relatively low impact activity. Of course not true if one takes a plane multiple times a year for week-long climbing trips. The other thing is that overall, climbers, much like kayaks for example, can be pretty good advocate for preservation.

I think it's also easy to go overboard on things that probably don't matter that much - for sure you need to clean the rock to some extent if you're going to climb it and have any fun doing it, as well as need to some trail/clearing the base of the cliff, probably use some chalk etc. In the big scheme things, except in super sensitive environment (like deserts), I don't think this is where one needs to focus on the most. Stuff you buy or boycott, trash you produce etc... likely matters more. At some point existing has an impact, any activity has an impact. Waterskying is probably not a great idea in the big scheme of things (though doubtless can be lots of fun), however canoeing while probably not completely impact-free is probably acceptable. Similarly for climbing vs, say, atv trails etc... I don't mean to say "my activites are fine, other's are not" either. I'm not into hunting and fishing, but depending how it's done, if population are managed to safe levels I don't see the issue.

2b) If you don't think that environmental issues are relevant in climbing, why do you think that?

The thing about air travel is not just a matter of MPG - it's mostly that nearly all of the carbone emitted is emitted high in the atmosphere and thus likely to stay there quite long, while emissions from ground level will be partly brought back into the carbon cycle.

So simply accounting for % of CO2 emissions by car vs plane is greatly misleading.... each pound of CO2 emitted at 30 000 feet has a much greater impact than the same pound driving to work.

EDIT:  as pointed out below, Nitrous Oxides are the main issue about airplane emissions, not C02.