Any interaction with nature is inherently destructive. Creating a hiking trail alters the surrounding environment no matter what you do. Walking off that built path is also destructive more or less. It’s easy for the plants to recover from your footprints of course, but they shouldn’t have to in the first place; it also sets the precedent for more destructive actions. How many parking lots were created at trail heads? Is there an easy way for people to get there without using a vehicle? Are all of your camping/hiking supplies natural, or are you going to be leaving behind microplastics with every footstep? Are you polluting the ground with PTFAs every time you dump out used water? How many micrograms of microplastics did you introduce into the area with your plastic bags of freeze dried meals? The soles of your shoes especially. I don’t know of a single shoe I can buy that doesn’t have synthetic soles. Recycled yes, but natural? Not unless I get clogs from the Netherlands.
The entire ‘outdoor activity’ industry almost seems like a way for people to cop out from responsibility for climate change. Like putting pro-environment stickers on your cars bumper, or buying a license plate that supports national parks. The horrible irony of it.
Many people will say it’s important to get into nature every once in awhile, but what does that really cost? How much pollution are you creating to satisfy that need? How many other people are doing exactly the same thing? Is it sustainable? No, it isn’t. Not even close. Unless you’re going out there in moccasins, creating a shelter from leaves and sticks, wearing only organic cotton and using a canvas bag the entire time, it is impossible to “leave only footprints”. Every step you leave behind bits of synthetic material that will persist for thousands of years and it’s too easy to ignore that fact.
The most remote places on earth have measurable levels of PTFAs’ and I’m certain those were put there not only by polluted rain, but also by people that wanted to camp at the most remote place on earth. They brought with them all their hiking gear, all of it synthetic. Including their non-stick pans. The morning coffee they had created pollution in what was once a pristine environment that will still be polluted for thousands of years because of their goddamn coffee.
Well, on the bright side there isn’t much nature left anyway. Most of the protected areas in my country are only protected because the logging companies don’t want them anymore. Unless you go really far into the mountains, the oldest forests you’ll find are only about a century old since they were left to regrow after the whole area was clear-cut at the beginning of colonization. If you do travel out to the the old-growth, you’ll certainly be passing a lot of active logging sites.
Camping and hiking serves no other purpose than another way to ignore your own guilt in the dying planet. I used to like camping, hiking especially, but now it carries the same emotional charge as visiting your beautiful, dying parent in hospice. All I see is waning beauty, what once was and what remains and it won’t remain for much longer.
*I don’t read any of your replies. It’s just a rant. Some people on here dissecting it like it’s a dissertation lol.
Creating a hiking trail alters the surrounding environment no matter what you do
Yes, but this is done in a managed way to allow us to enjoy the outdoors responsibly.
Walking off that built path is also destructive more or less.
Yes, which is why it is discourteous and you should not do it.
How many parking lots were created at trail heads?
Again, done in a managed way to allow us to enjoy the outdoors. Also the parking lot and trailhead are generally not deep in pristine nature and instead already on the side of a roadway.
Is there an easy way for people to get there without using a vehicle?
Why, though?
The entire ‘outdoor activity’ industry almost seems like a way for people to cop out from responsibility for climate change.
This is really bizarre logic. It sounds like you need to get outside and touch some grass.
Many people will say it’s important to get into nature every once in awhile, but what does that really cost?
Hiking is probably one of the lowest impact activities one can do. On the list of priorities to conserve nature, this is one of the lowest and something that does not need to change much, if at all, as long as people follow conventions like staying on the managed paths and don’t litter.
Every step you leave behind bits of synthetic material that will persist for thousands of years
Scale is important here, and you’re talking about things like micrograms. Plastic does not persist in the environment for thousands of years, in the first place, and micrograms of it would for much much less time than other plastic waste. Plastic is not a magically indestructible material, and it does break down into organic compounds with sunlight, changes in temperature, chemical processes etc. The real issue with plastic waste is the fact that we are producing more and more of it each year at a rate that outpaces it breaking down, and do not really have a viable way to deal with the waste at the same scale as our production.
Well, on the bright side there isn’t much nature left anyway.
This is false in multiple ways. 1, there are huge amounts of natural land. 2, the amount of natural forest globally has only increased since the early 1980s, and the same is true for land set aside for natural conservation and preservation. There’s literally more natural space right now than there has been in the last 40 years.
If you believed that there isn’t much nature left, it’s a big sign that you’re consuming too much doom content from the internet and have created a false and skewed perspective.
Purism is a terrible disease.
You are absolutely right.
How dare people try to enjoy the environment! It could even lead to them wanting to protect it, and we can’t have that.
Don’t worry; we Lemmy denizens all hate the outdoors here!
Not me—if a door is openly LGBTQ I will support it :3
if a door is openly LGBTQ I will support it :3
Verizon 💀
Creating a hiking trail alters the surrounding environment no matter what you do. Walking off that built path is also destructive more or less. Are all of your camping/hiking supplies natural, or are you going to be leaving behind microplastics with every footstep? Are you polluting the ground with PTFAs every time you dump out used water? How many micrograms of microplastics did you introduce into the area with your plastic bags of freeze dried meals? The soles of your shoes especially. I don’t know of a single shoe I can buy that doesn’t have synthetic soles. Recycled yes, but natural? Not unless I get clogs from the Netherlands.
The entire ‘outdoor activity’ industry almost seems like a way for people to cop out from responsibility for climate change.
Camping and hiking serves no other purpose than another way to ignore your own guilt in the dying planet. I used to like camping, hiking especially, but now it carries the same emotional charge as visiting your beautiful, dying parent in hospice. All I see is waning beauty, what once was and what remains and it won’t remain for much longer.
The list of bad effects you listed has very little to do with climate change, I guess transportation to parks is a little related. But I think you’re missing the point: it hurts you to see the effects of climate change BECAUSE you used to go camping. People need to be taught to love nature, it isn’t inherent in (all of) us.
It must be exhausting being like this.
Eh, as far as I understand it the PFAS is already transported through air everywhere, so there is no uncontaminated piece of land on this earth anyways. Same goes for microplastics, lead, mercury and more.
So as long as only trace amounts are added it doesn’t make a difference. And if people go into nature it is possible that they feel more of a connection to nature which can lead to them taking more care to keep it in a good shape even when they are not camping.
This same reasoning taken all the way to its logical conclusion would just suggest we should all kill ourselves.
What good is having pristine nature when there’s nobody around to enjoy it?
I mean if the end is pristine nature and no humans or a completely dead environment where humans walked it for a few hundred extra years I can see the good.
Well yeah, but it’s not a binary choice.
oh certainly. its an evolving circumstance. I was just answering the question.
Look. I get the way you feel. There are 8 billion people on the planet and it shows. The leave any footprints thing is for the masses. There are tons of folks who will casually litter unless there is something stopping them and it kinda needs to be social pressure. Then its good for cities and such to add natural spaces as it provides pockets for nature to survive and if lucky thrive. Personally I realize its not about not harming the planet. Just living as a modern human its almost impossible to do that. I just try and do the least harm possible. I try to stay local as possible. Going to places I can walk, bike, or take public transit to and if at some point I have to go someplace try to do it with train. Try to consume as little as possible and what I do consume I try and enjoy. Vegan is a bit to much for me but I try to at least avoid beef. I am lucky enough to not have kids. One thing I realize is if I had not went a fifth year to college and done a one year stint in a PhD and did a major that did not pay that well without an advanced degree. Well I might have had kids. If I had met my wife in a better economic position we might have had kids but luckily I did not and by the mid aughts we realized it was not something we would want to do given the way things were going. Im hoping to go out having left the lightest footprint possible. It will be there but practically unnoticable vs the other 8 billion from this time. Within these attempted limits I have I will enjoy as much as I can. It is tough. There is a bit of forest preserve near me and there are many dead trees. My guess is the microbiome of the soil is dead or dying but im not sure.
