In honor of Earth Day (April 22, 2021), I want to provide some awareness about Earth Day, what some companies are doing and a few tips on what you can do to help our planet. This is important to me because the reality is, our planet is suffering, and when in the mountains I have seen it firsthand.
Last year marked the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, which started due to pollution and the deterioration of the air and water impacting the health and well-being of people and our planet. Today Earth Day continues to do its part, with a focus on the climate crisis, clean energy, global warming and education. More than 190 countries across the globe and more than 1 billion people worldwide participate in Earth Day each year, helping to create awareness and make an impact around the many environmental issues that humans create.
Earth Day is important to me because when I visited Mt. Rainier in the '80s and '90s, you could be on the snowfields and glaciers after a short hike. Now, 30 years later, the world-famous Paradise Ice Caves of the Lower Paradise Glacier no longer exist, and where the glacier once stood is now volcanic rock and vegetation. Furthermore, the Nisqually Glacier, which we used to parallel as we ascended the Skyline Trail towards the Muir Snowfield, is no longer next to you as it continues to retreat up the side of the mountain at a rapid rate.
This is just one mountain, and although Mt. Rainier is the most glaciated mountain in the lower 48, multiply the above scenario by the entire Cascade Range and all of the mountains across the rest of the world, including the Andes, Alps, Himalayas, you name it, and this can only mean one thing: The world is melting away at an alarming rate. I saw evidence of this when I climbed Mt. Shasta last year--I experienced record-breaking heat of 100+ degree temps, which left a moonscape of rock at high elevations where you typically would be using crampons and an ice axe to climb.
This is concerning, because for me as a mountaineer, climate change has made climbing a lot riskier with larger crevasses, larger and more frequent avalanches, and rock and ice falls due to the glaciers that once held everything in place for thousands of years no longer existing. It's even made certain routes no longer climbable.
There is a great debate as to whether climate change and global warming really exist. I don't want to make this post political, but if they didn't exist, why would world leaders continue to recognize that both are urgent matters and continue to change policy to combat the negative impacts of both?
In fact, many Fortune 500 companies have committed to having little to no carbon footprint by 2050, including the major automakers committing to having fully hybrid or electric vehicles by 2040. Even in my own industry, the six largest banks in the U.S. have pledged to create awareness and take action to achieve the net zero emissions goal. To top it off, Amazon has committed to a $2 billion climate pledge to bring its company to net zero carbon emissions, becoming one of the biggest environmental stewards in the world. Headquartered in Washington State with Mt. Rainier as its backdrop, Amazon has a daily reminder as to why this is so critical.
If these really smart and impactful corporations are making global decisions due to the climate crisis, then it is time for us to do our part. The first thing you can do is educate yourself. While writing this post, I actually learned about the differences between climate change and global warming and the impacts of each. I don't want to bore you with all of the facts, but the first step is to become better educated about the subject matter. I recommend checking out reputable sites such as NASA or Climate.gov to learn more.
Second, Earth Day is a great reminder that we can all do our part pretty easily by just picking up the trash around us. Since we put it there, we can pick it up! Start by not littering in the first place. Walk along any road and I can guarantee you will see the ground littered with plastic bags, bottles, and God knows what else. Most of this stuff doesn't even biodegrade, so as I said, do your part and pick it up and recycle it if possible!
Third, this is our opportunity to help preserve the parks and places we've enjoyed going to for future generations. I would love for my nephews and nieces to see the beautiful mountains that Uncle Ben climbed and the parks that Lauren and I have visited, but I want them to see them as I did.
In my post "Outdoors with 2020," I mentioned how, due to Covid-19, many people took to the outdoors. If you recall, I never saw so many people at our national, state and local parks as I did in 2020. It is truly awesome that many opted to get outside and explore the beauty that our parks have to offer. But, what I also saw were littered forests, damaged trails and people off-trail destroying protected and delicate habitats.
Due to the droves of people who stampeded the parks, midway through 2020 our federal government passed the Great American Outdoors Act providing $1.9 billion per year over the next five years to help preserve and restore our national parks and forests and $900 million a year toward the Land and Water Conservation Fund. This aid is critical due to the overcrowding, pollution and misuse of our parks and waterways.
So, how can you make a positive impact in our parks? When hitting the parks, "leave no trace" by carrying out literally everything that you carried in. In other words, pick up your trash and stay on the trail so you don't damage the natural habitat.
Not everyone is a fan of the trail, and that's okay! However, we all still share the same planet, so you can still take action, leaving us with the fourth and final thing anyone can do. Reduce your use of plastic. U.S. recycling centers can't keep up with the amount of plastic bottles, to the point that a good portion of them end up on barges and are shipped to Asia. A bunch of the plastic also ends up in the ocean, often from our littered rivers or from barges dumping garbage into a deep hole in the Pacific Ocean called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
So, replace your Poland Spring water bottles with a reusable Nalgene or Yeti, use reusable bags when shopping (if you need any, just ask Lauren, as the trunk of her car is overflowing with them), turn off the water when brushing your teeth, and again, pick up trash when it is blowing around the trail or neighborhood, as it most likely will find its way into a local stream or river and ultimately into the ocean. As for me? I use a Nalgene bottle. I drink beer instead of bottled water, as beer comes in glass bottles (or a growler), which are better for the environment. And, if it's yellow, I let it mellow.
I don't want to sound like a bark-eater, but our planet continues to send a clear message that things must change as we continue to cause more damage than we do good. As we celebrate Earth Day this week, please join me and the more than 1 billion people to help clean up the planet and make a difference, hopefully not just this week, but on an ongoing basis.
Thanks for being a steward of our planet and of course...Climb On!
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