Look at it this way; hunting, fishing, off-roading, and RV camping are much more popular than the ultralight backpacking movement. I try not to be wasteful or leave a mess, but other than that I don't worry about it much.

acarter_1, let's see about insights.

Environmental impact of gear: We all must consume things to get by in this world we live in. While I do not think of my impact in buying some things to go backpacking, I do think of my impact in daily living. I most likely use less KWH than anybody on this forum, currently. Take that as a challenge : ).

Compromising weight for recycled gear: I am more interested in lightweight backpacking than recycled backpacking, but would consider a recycled product at the expense of a few grams...maybe. It depends on what that product is.

Animal-derived products: I believe that animals are here for human use and consumption in an ethical manner. What one considers ethical will vary widely. Admittedly that view does come from my upbringing in a christian family.

Edited by jshann on 10/21/2009 19:03:23 MDT.

"UL backpacking does take an anti-stuff stance in that sense. It is easier to eliminate wasted stuff from your life if you already have taken it out of your pack...."

Hang around this site a little longer and you may want to edit this statement. Do a quick poll as to how many packs, sleeping bags, cook systems, and shelters the average member here has.
A 10 pound pack looks really simple on the trail...but you don't see the mountain of gear in the garage that allows it- a bag for every season, a shelter for every type of trip, a stove for every menu...

I'm willing to wager that the average REI shopping "traditional" backpacker, while carrying more at once, probably has less gear overall.

Make no mistake, ain't nothing simple or ultralight about the entirety of the gear collections most people on this site own.

Lurk the Gear Swap for a while...
How many times have all of us "UL", "simple", "anti-stuff" backpackers burned 100 gallons of diesel to have that stove shipped to us only to save 14 grams over the perfectly good one we already have...Only to decide you don't like it and ship it out again...

Not to derail the conversation, but can an adverb follow a gerund in an independent gerundial phrase? Ultralight Backpacking Ethically? Ethical Ultralight Backpacking?

I'm not trying to be critical, just curious.

Edited by ChrisMorgan on 10/21/2009 20:19:27 MDT.

Grammer Police? ... As someone once said (I'm not sure who) .... "This is the sort of thing up with which I will not put!"



------------
Winston Churchill
(Sorry - Roger Caffin)

Edited by rcaffin on 10/21/2009 21:04:33 MDT.

I considered both orders of phrase for my initial post title, ultimately choosing the former, because I subjectively determined that the acronym UBE, when pronounced out loud as a word, flowed more smoothly from my lips than did EUB. I also felt that, although correct grammer is essential for assuring comprehension on the part of one's audience and/or conversation partners, an online hiking forum, perhaps, is not necessarily the ideal location in which to display one's admirable command of English grammer. Ultimately, I decided that UBE sounded cooler to me.

I find it interesting that turning something in to an acronym even played a part in it. FWIW (LOL). OMG!

"This is the sort of thing up with which I will not put!"

SHALL not put.

You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent....

For those looking for a more ethical down bag, there is now an alternative.

Thank you for returning us to topic. We are wasting kilowatt hours of electricity talking about acronyms. Does anyone else have anything to say about the piles and mountains of gear that UL afficionados have in their garages? I suppose I have been assuming that UL is synonomous with simplification. My bad.

I remember running accross a political poll many years ago (30+) that found 80% of Americans rated the environment in their top 10 concerns. Or something like that. The much younger and less tolerant version of myself was surprised by this. I had assumed that there were a lot more "wrong-thinking" people in the world that wanted to destroy the earth, its environment and the species that depend on it.

This thread serves to remind me that most people, given a reasonable choice, (This last being highly subjective) will generally make the environmental choice if it is clear and economically painless. Many will even endure a certain amount of pain, in time, money or effort to protect the environment when they can. The trouble is, and this is the point here, these decisions are rarely clear cut.

The good news is that we are trying. We are seeking information on this site in order to make better decsions. We all know there are trade-offs between synthetic and down, both in the weight we haul up that hill and to the environment. The information will eventually lead us to the "best" answer.

I believe that the more we consumers demand more environmentally sound products, the more they will be available to us. Business will always sell what people want to buy. Business will also try to sell us a pig in an open pit mine and tell us it is good in some convoluted way. We just need to be informed consumers and not let them pull the (merino) wool over our eyes. So keep asking questions. Keep seeking the lightest, most useful items. Keep looking for the companies that protect our environment. It will not be simple, but we are getting better at it.

>Obviously, political conservatives and liberals are equally capable of being concerned for the environment.

Exactly right. If you're a conservative, you're a conservationist. If you're a liberal, you're an environmentalist.

I'm one of those fuzzy-headed liberals who believe that if you look for common ground, you just might find it. If you look for conflict, you'll get it.

That's why I appreciate the generally non-accusatory nature of this thread. We may disagree on the methods, but the goals remain the same. Nobody wants to despoil the natural world.

Stargazer

>"Exactly right. If you're a conservative, you're a conservationist. If you're a liberal, you're an environmentalist."

an abslutely correct statement.

By the way, can someone explain to me what this trash is about "Ethical" backpacking? Give it a break -_-

Edit: And may I also add that the government needs to get it's paws off!

Edited by edude on 10/21/2009 22:35:12 MDT.

I think there is only one easy way to be sure you are having less impact on the environment due to your purchase and use of backpacking gear - purchase and use less of it. By using less, the uncertainties of the relative environmental impacts of synthetics vs. natural fibers, recycled vs. new, and so on, become less critical. It goes back to the basic idea of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle in that order of importance.
So one aspect of traveling light in the backcountry - not taking unnecessary gear - is inherently a good idea for the environment, as long as you also don't buy that unnecessary gear. In other words, the footprint of your gear is not what you carry but what you own - and to a lesser extent how long you own it. Wehn you use something until it is worn out, you get the most use of the resources that went into it. When you get something new just because it's a little better and the old item sits in the closet, that's more footprint for effectively the same use. I think that if you must have new gear, it's actually better to sell the old stuff so someone else can use use it and wear it out, thus getting all the use out of it.
But of course it is more complex when looked at over the long term. Someone mentioned the closet full of differnt sleeping bags for different conditions, adn so on. If you have several different bags (for instance) and you use them all enough so that over a period of many years you wear them all out, then you would have worn out several bags if you had owned only one at a time - and would not have enjoyed the benefits of having the right bag for each trip. Complexities do indeed abound.

In (overly)simple terms:
the babyboomers rebelled against their depression era parents/grandparents who believed in conserving, pinched pennies, saved and reused packaging, had a small wardrobe, and tried to never be wasteful.
So the babyboomers became the "Me" generation and loved excess and the excessive materialism postwar industry provided ( war battered Europe was just rebuilding itself.

Then as they grew up ....they realized their parents were right! But instead of admitting it they re-branded old fashioned values as "green" "LNT" "environmentalist" and the poison of US bipartisanship created a false image of the other side as being against them in spirit when they were only against them in detail. Then they turned against the huge industrial/Holywood material/fashion machine they created and ashamed and embarrassed at what they've done revised history to make it look like older generations and traditional Western values created that consumerist monster when it was in fact their own misguided youth culture.
Of course the science of environmentalism and the success of resource exploiting industry opened a whole new world of understanding the limits and impacts we can have like never possible in human history.
Let both sides of the isle come together to rebuild our infrastructure with out branding people because they find SUVs useful or can't afford to install solar power, buy patigucci cloths, eat like omnivores, or view GW with healthy skepticism. These petty fights mask the real problem and only serve those in power and leave all of us impoverished.

"These petty fights mask the real problem and only serve those in power and leave all of us impoverished."

Thank you.

The issues are hugely complex - if you cut down on what you buy, the economy goes down, jobs are lost and lives become harder. What is needed, as in most things is a sense of balance. However, when you have our version of 'democracy' and where the means of production and exchange have become a moral arbiter rather than just a production mechanism, where also ideologies such as 'freedom' and national identity are combined, you are fighting a loosing battle.

>>...you are fighting a loosing battle.<<

Darn loosing battles.

In one way ultralight people are friendly to the environment by carry less gear, unfortunately many of us have much more gear than most sitting at home. We could be friendlier to the environment and our wallets by calming down in our lust for the newest lightest gear. Or at least make sure to sell more of our extra stuff so that others do not need to purchase it new.

Edited by michaeltn2 on 10/22/2009 13:14:03 MDT.

"These petty fights mask the real problem and only serve those in power and leave all of us impoverished."

Thank you.""


cheers