Sorry Mom

Friday evening the skies clear, but I am having my weekly "professional day" in Boulderland when I attempt to do normal people things. There is just an hour of daylight left so I resign myself to an indoor evening of yoga; halfway through the practice, my mind is so stimulated through inversions that I have to stop and work on a presentation of my Patagonia project. In the process, I transform the talk from a classic academic-style lecture into a chronological adventure narrative describing the arc of the research, including nods to moments of learning or "discovery". It is definitely not finished, but I am very glad I took the step to rip apart the presentation and start rebuilding it as the story that it is. 

Desperate for cardio (after a couple weeks of dangerous backcountry conditions), I hit up folks to go running in the foothills on Saturday. Two confirm and I run three separate times (once on my own to get the cardio that I do not want to put them through), briefly taking a break for a 1.5 hour power yoga class. By the end my quads start to experience some soreness, but my lungs could have crushed another few miles. 

Sunday I plan to rest, but the forecast is too prime to pass up: clear skies, near-freezing temperatures, low wind speeds. I hitch a ride up to Eldora, cruise along the Jenny Creek Trail, and skin up to Rollins Pass by about noon! I have never made it up to Rollins Pass this early (the trail is well-packed and smooth), so I putz around the continental divide for a while orienting myself and taking in views of Winter Park. Next to me is a gorgeous cirque facing east, a few lines carved down couloirs from the divide giving me confidence. I have a strong hunch that there is a trail at the base of this valley and decide to confront the unknown: rip the skins, zip the shins, squeeze the knees, cheese the trees, and ski to free! At the Hessie Trailhead, a couple of kind Colorado transplants give me a ride home. Over ten miles and 3000 feet of gain - easily the best day of my season. 

Snowed In

Mostly snowed in without internet (until just now) – here are a few themes that have been bouncing around my head for the past few years and miles. 

1. Humans do not suck. Human behaviors frequently suck and should be changed with effort. 

We should be wary when we hear someone say, “roommates are the worst” or “I hate conflict.” Sure, everyone has a nightmare roommate story and/or uncomfortable memories about a heated verbal exchange. Still, these phrases tend to subtly mask a cooperation-averse attitude that increasingly pervades the western world, these “everybody pollutes but me”, “the other cars are traffic”, “everyone else has too many babies” types of reactions should serve as a dire warning that our social dialogue is suffering. Although it is almost certainly the case that the current rate of population growth cannot be sustained indefinitely, the overpopulation oversimplification is often used to hide the actual problem of lifestyle choices or industrial practices that cannot be scaled to large groups of people. It is a throw-up-your-hands, nihilistic regression to absurdity that attempts to justify inaction on real social and environmental problems because human life is inherently messy and unsustainable. 

In southern Chile, I often heard the suggestion from people who burn wood that other people should be avoided because they bring wood smoke. In the U.S., I hear from people who drive an automobile to work that growth brings traffic and congestion (or my personal favorite – I can never find a parking spot at the trailhead!) In both cases, folks construct a world in which life requires a number of very destructive practices, the effects of which should be mitigated by simply capping the number of people who are allowed to engage in those inherently-destructive activities. They suggest that borders should be erected – physical or financial or otherwise – to cap the number of people who call a place home. I am fully aware of the detailed literature on Earth’s ecological carrying capacity, population growth etc. but we should not let this argument continue to dominate social and environmental discourse in such a sinister way that evades responsibility and implies everyone else disproportionately contributes to environmental problems. 

Of course, it is exceedingly difficult to lead a life that can be scaled to the nearly 8 billion people on the planet. However, it is not unreasonable to request that folks at least attempt to lead a life that can be scaled to <1 million people living in a metropolitan area. From a natural selection standpoint, the most ethical action is that which can be successfully repeated over many generations. That is to say, instead of pursuing development policies that construct barriers to entry in the neighborhood, city, state etc. we should adopt fair ‘rules of play’ supporting lifestyles that don’t get in the way of others’ ability to go about their lives, rather than descending into the stubborn exceptionalism that generally characterizes growth conversations. Instead of continuing to insist that we occupy a privileged place of car-driving and wood-burning that other people are not worth enough to occupy, maybe we could consider the idea that our current lifestyles could be incrementally improved. I’m fully aware that making transportation and heating more expensive would disproportionately hurt poorer folks. However, from a fundamental economic perspective, car-driving and wood-burning are only the cheapest options because they rely on unquantified ‘negative externalities’ to maintain their cheapness. In the case of cars, some of these negative externalities are vehicle emissions that are proven to cause cancer, lung disease, and asthma; constant casualties from traffic accidents; and reduced quality of life for just about every living creature nearby, including the one in the car (see the Atlantic’s ‘The Absurd Primacy of the Automobile in American Life’ for a detailed analysis). In the case of wood-burning, some of these negative externalities include cancer, lung disease, and asthma; as well as rapid destruction of all nearby forests. So next time you find yourself reducing your thoughts down to ‘there are just too many people,’ make sure you consider every possible alternative lifestyle choice that could be more efficiently scaled to your neighborhood, city, state, or country. 


2. Humans did not evolve in cities.

Humans did not evolve in cities. According to Wikipedia, the first city to reach 100,000 people was probably Ur around 2100 B.C. According to the New York Times, “anatomically modern Homo sapiens” probably arrived on the scene about 130,000 years ago. So a very liberal estimate of the percent of human history that has been lived in large cities is about 3%. Accordingly, cities deserve a great degree of skepticism and require frequent adjustment. For example, since our brains and emotional structures primarily evolved in a radically different social structure, perhaps a nomadic tribe composed of relatives and known companions, we should probably have a proactive plan for how we might maintain community when living densely with millions of mostly anonymous people. I am as strong a proponent as any when it comes to the benefits of density, e.g. sharing costs of domestic appliances, avoiding car ownership, sharing heating costs across larger, more efficient structures etc. But I think cities have a sinister capability to become self-perpetuating economic growth monsters that insatiably gobble up surrounding resources. Denizens are conscripted to supervise the laborious extraction from bankrupt soils of cheap soy oil and corn sugars, which are cheaply converted in factory feedlots to animal protein to breed more worker humans... 

The city of Denver makes me sad. Sure, I suppose back in the day it made sense to have a central area for managing mining activities and to serve as a headquarters for the steady exploitation of the Colorado River Basin. But now its existence seems somehow excessive or unnecessary - it is well understood that the magic of Colorado is the outdoor spaces and the mountains. But Denver seems to be a place that folks set up shop for "business" or "economic opportunities." Why not go do your business and economic development in the already dirty, polluted cities of the East coast? Keep your self-perpetuating industrial capitalism away from the mountains!

3. Social norms regarding activities such as scheduling, making plans and allocation of time require updating. (today's “Grinds my Gears” topic)

I used to like making plans: scheduling a solid commitment to look forward to and prepare myself for was a positive experience. Recently I find myself constantly at odds with other humans’ planning norms. And before you label me as the anti-social hermit who refuses to adopt shared human values, I will point out that the norms I encounter are not self-consistent! I have interacted with some folks who like to have their recreation scheduled out a few days in advance and become frustrated when those plans change, and others who like to throw together their day at 7am. To my knowledge, there do not seem to be any universal, mutually-agreed-upon lengths of time between the scheduling of an event and the event itself, during which it is frowned upon to alter the plan in any way. Rather, these norms seem to accumulate in individual business communities, friend groups, families etc., situations in which they are probably very useful. That said, I seem to have an affinity for an instantaneous, real-time planning process that begins seconds to years before an event and seamlessly transitions into the present, which is constantly re-evaluated, heuristically modified based on new information. I now seem to dread most future plans, regardless of how good they are; the fact that it is scheduled makes it a chore (except for maybe backcountry skiing). An activity that is spontaneous will always be better than that same activity, planned. 

In an ideal world, we could all share instantaneous information about our activities, transportation would not require time or energy, and we could direct our individual attentions on those uses of time which are most meaningful, apparating all over the place living our best lives. But we are confronted with transportation costs, both in terms of time and energy; accordingly, we should probably be especially sensitive to changing of plans when significant transportation investments are involved (one convenient way to reduce or eliminate the costs of transportation is to enjoy one’s transit time, whether reading on the bus or riding a bike). On the bright side, in these sophisticated technological times, it is easier than ever to share our activities in real-time, and collective attention can be rapidly directed to fun or important events. While we will always be confronted by the physical barriers of space and time, I think we ought to allow ourselves more freedom to follow our fancies and allow those most popular uses of time to resolve themselves out of the noise of the world and gather momentum… 

Grey Jey Dey

Except near the Continental Divide, where wind was whipping snow into thick walls of cloud advancing downslope, Monday was a classic bluebird day! I did not see any bluebirds, but I did see mountain chickadees (Poecile gambeli), gray jays (Perisoreus canadensis), and magpies (Pica hudsonia). If you recognize these landscapes, it is because I ski this route about once a week! It is a magical little loop that can take anywhere from 4-6 hours depending on the snowpack, sunshine, wind, and how many laps I decide to ski. It spans an elevation gradient of ~9,000-11,500 feet; my cardiovascular system feels like a well oiled machine after a day on this trail! I ascended above the packed trail and found myself wading through thigh-deep snow (my telemark setup is not very wide). After moving about 500 feet in an hour, I got tired and decided to ski down the packed trail!  

"the crest of the wave" 

Primal Maryland "Crabcakes"