Guardians or Looters?

its hardly a perfect world. a lot of us live a lot further from where we want to recreate than we want to. most of us need to make a living, and recreation usually comes second best, even if it is a well meaning trip into the mountains. our carbon footprint may be low when we're in the mountains but can be anything but getting to and from them... should we stop enjoying the mountains because of the imperfections of following the pursuit? i didnt own a car as an adult for years. thought i'd be nice to the environment and cycle, walk or take public transport. but most people i knew didnt take that view, in the end i gave in and bought a car for the convenience of getting into the outdoors as much because i felt so trapped in the big city and it wasnt easy for me to move away.. I didnt fly for twenty years while most people I knew were flying around the world on holidays and OE.

Not to mention the computers, tablets and phones we are using right now to have this debate.

Essentially most aspects of modern living are environmentally harmful. It's unfortunate, but that's how it seems to be. I guess its important to be as environmentally friendly as you can, but there's always going to be some effect.

Whilst the world continues to chase infinite growth from finite resources to feed the ever insatiable greed we are all looters, guardians do not exist. We live in the society of consumerism, to maintain consumerism we must have growth. For growth to be maintain we have to go forth and multiply with fervor in order for there to be enough people to buy more useless stuff made from the world’s finite resources. In order for the 1% that control 99% of the resources to make a big fat profit. It is akin to lemmings as they are depicted falling off a cliff, follow the leader and everything will be fine. Will the big fat profits aid them when the resources run out, no it won’t. There are no guardians as such. We go into the outdoors with the best of intentions to leave no trace of our presence. However it would be a rare occurrence in which we left absolutely no trace. Plus, even if we did achieve the no trace factor, there are enough hoons roaming around to destroy any such achievements many times over. If the world’s population is not brought to a grinding halt and then put into reverse, then it won’t be too far away when there will be no more wilderness to roam, just people crawling all over one another. So! If they manage to solve the climate issue at least we won’t all drown. We can just starve instead. The fact of the matter is, and it is a worldwide phenomena, NZ has but 15% of it’s original indigenous wilderness forest cover left compared to what was here on the arrival of the first immigrants. It is decreasing even further every year. Let us all get out there and enjoy it while we can. In precisely the way we always have, with due care and attention to leave as little trace as possible. There is about 75 years left to do so at the current rate of progress. During the war years they shot looters did they not?

the writer advocates against taking commercial flights to go on holiday to reduce their carbon footprint. On any given year volcanoes emit several times more carbon dioxide than humans do from burning fossil fuels. sight seing flights are far worse for the environment than airliners, the carbon footprint per person is far higher, fewer passengers, short flights that burn more fuel doing more takeoffs, flying at low altitude which is far ore inefficient. the planes are technically unecessary since they are mainly used purely for recreation and per person flying in them waste more resources and have a high carbon footprint per person manufacturing them, let alone flying them. what about buying imported goods? is the writer paying attention to trying to buy locally to minimise the carbon footprint? the carbon footprint per person of an airport like queenstown would be enormous given all the small sight seeing aircraft that operate from there, a squirel helicopter uses 170 litres of fuel an hour and often they aren't even full when they fly. and they are used to service conservation dept assets, so if you don't want to contribute to that waste of carbon then technically you should then refuse to use those assets no matter how close to home they are. surely ocean liner cruise ships use more fuel per person than aircraft, given how much heavier they are and how slow they go... the average cruise ship emits as much sulphur as 22 million cars, not to mention the mercury and other toxic compounds they put out. and what about how these people get their electricity at home? most electricity is generated by fossil fuels overseas, from power stations burning oil as dirty as the cruise ships and coal which is the most dirtiest fuel. britain 70% of its energy from coal. china is similar, australia, america just as dirty.. airliners are actually a relatively small part of the problem. carbon dioxide isnt the only factor heating up the atmosphere, the suns activity also does so. and methane is a far greater greenhouse gas than CO2. its all very well people moralising about the environment but when they only have a grasp of a small part of the bigger picture then its just a distorted article. reducing how much people fly is a small part of the answer to reducing global warming, i only know a couple of people who've done anything about reducing their carbon footprint, i think most people dont care or dont want to make major changes to their lifestyle what about the green MP;s who live in mansions and waste a lot of power heating them? I saw Sue Kedgley from the greens driving a large V6 car. some people want to throw stones from their glass houses. what about all the gear the guy who wrote the article uses? the stuff made from petro chemicals and the aluminium which uses massive amounts of dirty electricity to make? its hypocrisy to point the finger and flying and ignore all the other factors that are giving him a much bigger carbon footprint. does he look at every item he buys and the carbon footprint it has in its manufacture? does he use aircon? how does he heat his home since he comes from a cold country? how efficient is his home? does he drive a car? or take public transport using dirty fuel? hed be responsible for burning exponentially more amounts of fossil fuel in his day to day life than he ever would from flying around the world unless he's a real jetsetter. so where does it really stop when you want to moralise to people about what they should and shouldnt be doing with their lives? really i think the author should do his homework or shut up, what about the glossy paper magazine that that article will be printed in, the toxic siliconised paper that goes into a landfill let alone the carbon footprint of producing it... the reality is it would be kinder to the planet if most people didnt exist on it, so that brings the argument of how do you reduce the world population and how fast does it need to be reduced to save the planet for the rest of the people on it.. should we have a Logan's run society where the powers that be kill everyone off at 30 in a ceremony that is glorified and approved by society... and on and on the arguments go. do many trampers care? possibly not.. conservation is a big over arching complicated topic. i run a facebook group for trampers with a couple of thousand followers, i post a lot of conservation news, very few people in the group are actively reading what i post, if you don't care about saving the birds and the forest, do you care any more about saving the rest of the environment and the weather?

"i only know a couple of people who've done anything about reducing their carbon footprint, i think most people dont care or dont want to make major changes to their lifestyle" It's a considerably harder thing to do when you know that nobody else is doing it, and that most likely other people will simply benefit from your own sacrifice. (Don't buy a plane ticket? They get cheaper, or marketed more, and someone else does.) That's because when you sacrifice something generally desirable, it normally increases the incentive for someone else to take it instead. When individuals can make a significant difference then it's fantastic, and I'm not saying that people shouldn't volunteer or help towards getting things "fixed", but overall I'd rather have good policy that shapes how society works than have insignificant individuals martyring themselves for very little purpose other than setting an example that most people won't follow. Individuals set examples, but majorities respond to clear incentives.

There is nothing easy about this I agree. The system is complex and the solutions will be complex too. No magic bullets for this one. Having said that ... nature always bats last. Our political system has had 25 years to act and has failed. And shows every sign of continuing to fail even when the carbon budgets that will keep us under a 2 degC rise are almost used up. The question is; do you have children or grandchildren? And what do you want them to remember you for?

I have two boys and another 8 weeks away. Ironically they are who has made fighting the consumer world the hardest. Before them I had no computer, cellphone or tv. I had no car. Very few possessions. I recycled the very small amount of rubbish i created. I did a lot of volunteer work in the bush. I ate predominantly vegetarian meals. I lived really simply. I was a bit of an Eco hippy to be honest. Then they came along and things have slowly changed. It hasn't been on purpose it just happened. For two main reasons. It's hard to bring up kids like that and let them integrate freely with their peers. You have to ease up a little otherwise they become to ostracized and alienated. As much as it hurt me I have let them do a lot of things I swore I would never let my children do. Secondly life gets bloody busy with two working parents. Two growing boys, two dogs and a mortage. It's bloody tiring just getting them to their sports alone. Then there's schooling. Friends. Etc etc. things that mattered slip. I'm still an Eco warrior in my heart. I always will be. I feel I have a pretty good balance in my life. The boys are very fit, well adjusted boys. They love nature and the outdoors. My partner and myself both love tramping. I like to stay very fit. But once a year we spend a month overseas. We buy a lot of material possessions. We have a lot of garbage. All you can really do is live your life with as much integrity as you can. Do as much as you can to help Gaia. But don't beat yourself up too much about not doing everything you can. We are not monks or gods, we are human beings living in a crazy world. Thank god we live in New Zealand .

overseas flying is so incredibly cheap on short haul flights compared to trains and of course fast, there was a case of a guy wanting to get across britain and it was cheaper for him to get a deal flying too and from Berlin than taking a train or going direct, so thats what they did. flying is such a massive industry its so cost effective to fly and so much faster than other options its too tempting not to when you want to make the best out of your limited holidays or long weekends... and its happening in NZ too look at the deals being offered, if you're in the main centres you can fly the length of the country for tens of dollars when the deals are on, the planes get bigger and airlines get better buying power on fuel, and as it gets cheaper more people fly, try telling the chinese and indians not to fly, many of them are recent converts to overseas holidays and go for it... global warming isnt turning away the increasing no's of tourists coming to NZ at all... most of them will consume a lot of fossil fuels to travel around once they've finished burning them on the plane or cruise ship...